Nondeterministic
by elev
Summary: Elizabeth has seen some weird stuff in her time working with Harold Finch and his Machine AI, but nothing like Aperture Science. Cut off from Root and Shaw and thrust into an unfamiliar, dangerous environment overseen by an AI that seems just a little too interested in her alleged "massiveness", she must survive long enough to escape GLaDOS' clutches. Chell will show up soon!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I have no idea what I'm doing. Yes, yes, I know-Feature Creep needs updated. I'm working on it! In the meantime, enjoy the start of another story._

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"Root," I whispered, "this place is _really_ creeping me out. Can we just go?"

Next to me, the hacker smirked. The tip of her tongue peeked out from between her lips as she concentrated on the silver keypad next to the double metal doors. She used a tiny screwdriver to remove the screw holding the cover in place and pried it off, revealing a circuit board. The golden traces glistened in the light of the cell phone screen I held in shaking hands, a poor-man's flashlight.

The rest of the hallway was pitch fucking black, and it was freaking me out like nobody's business. But we couldn't risk the glare of a flashlight, not yet.

"Hold the phone steady," Root said. She eyed the circuit board and spotted the connector she was looking for. Fishing out a thin cable from her pocket, she carefully plugged one end into a minuscule four-pin header on the circuit board and motioned for the phone. I handed it over. Root plugged the other end of the cable into the phone. The screen lit up her face and wavy hair, giving her an eerie, otherworldly look.

I couldn't stand not having something in my hands. I reached into my skirt pocket and grabbed the compact flashlight, its diamond-pattern grip digging into my palm, but I didn't dare click it on lest it be visible through the narrow windows high up in the wall behind us.

The skin crawled on the back of my neck. We were being watched. I knew it, could _feel_ it, even though I knew that the lax security guards were loitering far away, having a smoke on the other side of the building. I resisted the urge to look around. If I glanced away from the light of Root's phone, I would be done for.

Fucking phobias.

"Come on, Lizzy," Root drawled, her childish voice unconcerned and more than a little condescending. Her fingers tapped away on the phone screen. "You've been on tougher infiltrations than this."

"That doesn't make it any less creepy!" I complained.

"Relax," Root said. "It's a cakewalk. She's already killed the lab cameras and She says there's only the two guards outside."

There was no doubt who _She_ was; the capital S was evident in Root's voice. Root only invoked the big S when she was talking about The Machine—"Sybil", as I called the mysterious artificial intelligence.

"Two guards is still two more than zero!" I hissed. "And it's _dark_."

"Once we get past this door, we can use the flashlight," Root said. On cue, there was a _click_ , disturbingly loud in the silent hallway. Root yanked the cable, reattached the faceplate to the lock, pulled the metal door open, and stepped inside without hesitation. I followed, closing the door as softly as I could behind us.

"Can I turn it on now?" I begged. My thumb trembled on the flashlight's switch.

"Yep."

I clicked on the flashlight, running the beam around the hallway, and took a deep breath. Then another. The smothering pressure around my throat and chest slowly eased at the illumination, but my heart continued to race.

The décor of this place wasn't helping my anxiety at all. It was all straight lines and monochrome contrast, brutally minimalistic; white wall panels edged in black and polished gray linoleum tiles underfoot. There were a few doors at uneven intervals, a single intersection with a cross hallway halfway further down, and at the very end of the hall, a pair of tall lift doors. The hallway was strict, authoritarian; I felt intimidated just looking down it.

Root, of course, walked forward with her obnoxious air of confidence.

"What are we even looking for, anyway?" I asked as I trailed behind Root. The hallway echoed our voices and footsteps. "If I'd known you were going to drag me on a treasure hunt, I would've stayed home with my books. You made it sound like we had a case."

"But if you'd stayed home, you would've missed out on the fun," Root said. I couldn't see her face, but the annoying sing-song quality in her voice told me she was grinning.

"Does this look like my 'having fun' face to you?"

Root didn't bother turning around. "Sybil's, ah, not being very specific about our target," she said, scratching the back of her head. For a brief moment, metal glinted beneath her hair and fingers. I shivered. Root's cranial implant was a little more subtle than the tiny earpiece she'd used to use to talk to Sybil, but at the same time, it was infinitely more creepy. Sybil had told me (with a certain amount of digital pride) that she had designed the system herself from the logic gates up, everything from the implant itself, to the encryption algorithms protecting the wireless connections, to the robotic surgery unit she'd used to install everything in Root's head, neck, and spine. From a technological standpoint, the system was a marvel.

But how crazy did you have to be to get a gigabit Ethernet port embedded right in your skull?

"Okay, look," I said. "If I'm going to spend my night playing Detective with you in the fucking _dark_ , Sybil needs to start being specific. Like, right _now_."

"'Anomalous intelligence', she says."

"What does that even _mean_?"

"I don't know. She won't elaborate. But she says it's below us. We'll take the elevator."

I nervously pointed my flashlight beam down one of the side halls as we walked. It was much the same as the one we were walking down. We continued on, passing doors on the left and right. Root ignored them; apparently Sybil was being "specific" enough to direct her towards the end of the hallway.

I jumped in surprise when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Sybil had sent me a text message:

 _Please continue. Priority. Low risk. No further information available._

I grumbled. I _really_ hated being kept in the dark like this, both figuratively and literally. But that was just part of working with Root and Sybil. And it seemed that, in this case, Sybil didn't know much more than we did.

We stopped at the double metal doors and Root pressed the call button. The lifts, unlike the rest of the building, were brightly lit. I squinted as we stepped inside. Root selected a floor—basement—and the lift wheezed into motion. When it arrived, we disembarked into a darkened hallway that was almost exactly like the previous one but for a globular white security camera peering down at us from the ceiling.

"You sure she killed all the cameras?" I asked, eying it with caution. The camera looked much different than the utilitarian rectangular cameras on the ground floor; it had a sort of futuristic look to it, all smooth curves and few hard edges.

"Yeah. She's already in most of their systems. Terrible firewall."

A moment later, a red LED light blinked twice on the rim of the camera. Reassured, I allowed myself to relax a little. With Sybil controlling the cameras and feeding Security false information, we were free to do whatever it was we were supposed to be doing down here.

In the fucking _dark_.

"Can we switch on some lights or something?" I asked as Root stopped in front of a door that looked suspiciously like all the other doors down here: plain gray metal, indistinguishable. Root pulled out her phone again and held it near the lock—this one, it appeared, used a RFID fob.

"I thought you were doing better with the darkness thing," she said. "You're being kinda wimpy. What happened to the hotheaded schoolgirl that punched somebody in the face yesterday?"

"Fuck you," I said. Sometimes I wondered why I put up with Root at all.

"Maybe this weekend, if you ask nicely."

Well. There was one of the reasons.

"Look," I sighed, flicking the beam down the hallway in both directions, "I just—something is freaking me out about this place. I can handle darkness, but not darkness plus freaky."

For a second, I thought Root was going to make another snarky, borderline snide remark—her face had that mischievous look to it—but instead she nodded and said, "I don't like this place much either. If we don't find anything in ten minutes, we'll jet and go get dinner someplace with Shaw. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

The lock clicked, and we were in. The room beyond was massive and dark. Shadowy shapes loomed out of the darkness. I swept my flashlight across the room. It had the look of a science lab: hard gray floors, tall swivel chairs, and long desks covered in electrical equipment. There were several aging desktop computers connected to tall racks of mysterious devices festooned with gauges, readouts, knobs, and switches. A massive set of transformers hummed ominously over on one side of the room.

Across the back wall, revealed in my flashlight beam, the company name was emblazoned in foot-tall, crisp black letters: _Aperture Laboratories_.

"Watch your eyes," Root said. I closed them and a second later Root hit the lights. It took some squinting and blinking to get used to the sudden brightness, but it was worth it. The room was _far_ less ominous when the lights were on.

Root wandered into the lab, stepping carefully to avoid brushing any of the controls on the devices around us. She moved purposefully, as if she was searching for something. I didn't even know where to start looking.

Eventually, Root pointed at a large wireless router mounted to the ceiling and said, "She says somebody's using that access point."

I froze.

"Wait," I said, "somebody's _here_?"

"That's the thing. She says there's no one around except for you, me, and the guards outside. Everybody else is gone for the weekend."

"Maybe somebody left a laptop or something. Does she know what's being transmitted?"

She tilted her head as she listened to whatever information Sybil was downloading into her brain.

"They keep trying to open connections to machines on an IP range registered to a Black Mesa corporation in Arizona. Some kind of...rival physics lab. She tried identifying the sender's OS from the traffic but she's not getting any matches."

"An OS _Sybil_ doesn't recognize? They've got to be spoofing."

"Yeah. She tried port-scanning the client, and it stopped— then it started up a few milliseconds later and tried connecting to _her_."

"That's really odd. Some kind of reactive IDS?"

"Might be. She wants us to figure out what it is."

I chewed the inside of my cheek.

"Okay," I said, "I admit, I'm curious now."

"I told you it'd be fun."

"I'm not going _that_ far."

Root smirked but said nothing. Instead, she sat down at one of the desks and powered on its desktop computer. While Root busied herself with hacking the login screen, I wandered towards the back of the room. I was very careful not to touch anything—most of the equipment had "high voltage" warnings printed on them, especially the ones with the fat cables coming straight off the transformers. I avoided that side of the room.

I made my way along the back wall, following the company logo, when I came across a door that had been propped open with a doorstop. The lights were off in the room beyond, but it was not dark; there was some sort of light source up ahead. The room looked like another lab, this one L-shaped but filled with just as much equipment as the first one.

I peered over my shoulder to see Root thoroughly absorbed in her hacking. She really didn't like being interrupted when she was trying to break into a new system, so I gulped, pulled out the flashlight again, and stepped inside.

At first, there was nothing too unusual. I made my way carefully into the lab towards the light, which came from around the corner. Something about the color made me shiver. The lab florescent were a neutral white with a touch of warmth; this light was cold, tinged blue.

At the corner, I paused, my back against a metal equipment cabinet, and listened. There were no unusual sounds, so I peeked around the corner.

The source of the light was immediately obvious: at the far end of the room, in an otherwise blank wall, was a large circular doorway onto another hallway, long and featureless. The doorway didn't look like anything I'd seen in this building. Or _any_ building. Certainly it looked nothing like the plain rectangle of an exit door over to the side. The doorway didn't fit with its surroundings, and that set me on edge.

My curiosity piqued, I took a cautious step out from around the corner, then another. My uneasiness grew as I approached. There was something just not _right_ here. The wall seemed to flicker and shimmer as I approached—but surely that was a trick of the lighting, or my nerves? I blinked, and the effect vanished, but the feeling of wrongness just wouldn't leave me.

I paused just in front of the door. A cold breeze flowed from the doorway, carrying with it a strange, antiseptic smell. Wrinkling my nose, I examined the circular doorframe. It protruded from the wall about an inch and was perfectly black. There wasn't a single speck of white paint from the wall, nor dust. The junction between the wall and the doorframe was incredibly precise; an exact, unnatural, razor-sharp 90 degree angle.

I peered closer to see if I could spot any sort of gap between the doorframe and the wall, but something about the perfectly straight line made my stomach churn, and I couldn't bear to look at it for long. It was like staring into a void, or maybe trying to make sense of one of those "impossible shape" brain teasers.

Gulping, I peered over the my shoulder again, wondering if I should get Root. If I listened closely, I could hear her still typing away on the keyboard. Still working on the computer, then. I turned back to face the doorway.

 _Come on, it's just nerves_ , I thought to myself. _You've done way scarier stuff like this_. With that in mind, I took a deep breath and walked through the doorway.

And immediately sank to my knees.

The shimmering was back, and no matter how many times I blinked, the floor refused to stay still. Bile rose in my throat and I lost my balance, slumping against the wall. There was a loud _hiss_ and a clunk, and then, silence. A few miserable seconds later, the nausea and dizziness passed, and I could see again.

 _What the hell was_ that _?_ I wondered. Cautiously, I rose to my feet again.

The door was closed.

Dread trickled down my spine. I yelped and rushed to the door, trying to pry it open with my fingers, but it was no use—the panels were fitted together too tightly for me to work even a fingernail between them, and when I gave the door a good, solid _thump_ , it didn't even rattle in its tracks.

Trembling, I backed away from the door and tapped my Bluetooth earpiece.

"Root," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the long stretch of hallway, "This door closed behind me and I can't get it open. Can you open it from your side?"

But there was no response—not even a hiss of static. With a growing sense of horror, I checked my cell phone.

No signal. Of course there was no signal.

I waited. I banged on the door again, although it accomplished nothing more than making my fist smart. I yelled. I rebooted my cell phone and called Root. Called Shaw. John. Carter. Nothing—there was no signal, period. I paced back and forth in front of the door on shaking legs. But no matter what I did, there was no reaction from the other side of the door.

It was almost as if Root had left me here.

The thought gave me pause. Would she be callous enough to do that? I mean, sure, Root was unpredictable as hell, and if I got in the way between her and Sybil, I wasn't entirely sure my place in her wonky social hierarchy (which, in terms of flesh-and-blood people, was pretty much just me, Shaw, and herself) would be enough to keep me in one piece. On the other hand, we worked well together, we fucked well together, and we'd saved each other's asses more than enough times to form a strange bond. And this didn't _feel_ like something Root would do.

If nothing else, she would've had some way to brag before leaving me to rot.

Fighting back panic, I slumped against the door and waited. I resolved to try and find another way back outside if I didn't hear from Root in ten minutes.

It was an interminable wait. I divided my attention between my cell phone, literally counting the seconds, and studying the hall. It was perfectly square and seemed to be formed of light gray cement panels. Long embedded light fixtures shone from behind frosted glass every half-dozen feet or so, casting their cold glow into the hallway. A single air conditioning grate was set into the ceiling. And that was it in terms of features. There was no variation until the hallway turned a corner about thirty feet down. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. I could hear my own heart thudding in my chest, the rustle of fabric as I shifted my legs and nervously fingered the hem of my skirt. I felt nauseous.

But at least it wasn't dark.

Finally, the ten minutes were up. Then eleven. After twelve, I figured that Root probably wasn't coming for me, so I stood up. I hitched up my skirt and reached for the little pistol tucked into the thigh holster. Its weight in my hand was reassuring—about the only comfort I had right now. I chambered a round but left the safety on, keeping my finger well away from the trigger. Keeping the gun pointed downward, I began walking. My flat Mary Janes made soft little taps against the cement. I got to the end of the hallway and turned to find another strange round door. This one had a life-sized pictogram of a running man set in the right panel. It glowed teal and it appeared to depict a person frozen mid-motion while fleeing, like an exit sign. Encouraged, I walked towards the door, looking for any type of switch or lock. But once I got close enough, the door suddenly slid open by itself with a startlingly loud hiss of pneumatics.

 _Holy cow_ , I thought, pausing just shy of the threshold. I examined the inside of the door panels. They were a good six inches thick, with a complicated latching mechanism on each panel. I wondered if Root had even been able to hear me pounding.

But my attention was quickly drawn to something more interesting: the noise. Now that the door was open, I could hear the rush of air moving. I moved forward, down a series of steps, and stopped.

The barren, circular room held only one thing of interest: a sleek cylindrical lift in a clear tube about five feet across. The lift cab was made of glass, silver metal, and white plastic; it was stark and stripped of all superfluous details, just like the hallways. A light fixture embedded in the cab ceiling cast a warm glow from the lift, its light spilling out into the surrounding room and casting long, razor-sharp shadows from the narrow support rails.

Movement caught my eye and I looked up. An absolutely massive turbine dominated the ceiling. It had dozens of blades and rotated lazily around the lift tube itself; it was clearly the source of the noise. Looking closer at the lift, I realized that it had no cables. Was the thing driven by air pressure?

Somehow, the thought didn't bother me as much as it should have.

The floor turned from cement to glass underfoot as I approached the lift; beneath me were cables and pipes suspended above metal plates. I paused at the open doors to the lift cab and looked back over my shoulder, wondering if it would be better to wait for Root at the door. But the second door had closed behind me—there was no way to go back. Only forward.

 _I hope this thing actually works_ , I thought to myself. _I really want out of here._ Gulping, I took a deep breath, smoothed my skirt, and stepped into the lift cab. I didn't see any buttons. No sooner had I started to examine the back wall of the lift for some sort of control did the semicircular glass door slid shut behind me with a _whoosh_. There was a clunk and my stomach leapt into my throat—I was headed downward, precisely the opposite direction I was hoping to go.

"God dammit," I sighed, thumping the glass wall with my fist. The shaft outside was very dark, lit only incidentally by the lift; I saw the indistinct silhouettes of girders and support columns in the distance, black on black. Terror bubbled up in my stomach. I crossed my arms, cradling myself, and stared down at the floor, taking deep breaths. For the first time, I noticed the circular motif etched in the floor panel. It looked like a camera shutter halfway open.

Like an aperture.

Aperture Laboratories.

 _Cute_ , I thought.

The lift plunged downward. After about a minute of standing, I sat down, huddling on the cold floor. There was nothing else I could do but wait.

#####

In the lab, Root suddenly looked up from her computer.

"What do you mean, _gone_?" she asked.

#####


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I'm working on Feature Creep still, I swear! But this chapter was already written...it'd be a shame not to post it..._

 _Trying to work Donnelly into a more active roll in FC. He was the whole reason I started writing that story (well, before Carter got...you know...). Stay tuned for more from our favorite sleepy-eyed FBI agent!_

#####

The lift plunged down, down, down. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor as much as possible, glancing up every so often only to confirm that I was still surrounded by darkness. It must've been five minutes at least before the lift decelerated smoothly and the world outside was light again. With an echoing hiss, the lift slid to a stop, opening its door to allow me to depart. I waited, praying that the lift would reverse and take me back upstairs, but after several minutes it was clear that this was my destination.

God, I was scared shitless.

Standing on shaky legs, I took stock of my available resources, just like John and Shaw had taught me to do whenever shit hit the fan and I was cut off from help. I didn't have much. There was the pistol in my hands, with five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. (Not a lot, all things considered, but I didn't usually need to go around spraying bullets—Shaw was the one that liked to do that, with Root and John tying for second place.) I had my phone, with its custom firmware built for cracking into foreign networks, but without signal it wasn't worth much at the moment. There were two hairpins stuck in my hair, more for convenient storage than for taming the frizz—I never knew when I'd run into a lock that needed picking. I had my flashlight, sixty dollars, a credit card, and a fake ID ("Grace Hopper", one of my low-security identities). And that was about it.

It'd have to do.

I held up my pistol and took a cautious step out of the lift, then another. The room was much the same as the one above, but with one striking change: now the curved outer wall was a massive video screen that wrapped nearly around the entire room, leaving only a narrow gap for a metal staircase that ascended towards a hallway.

"Welcome to Aperture," the screen said in massive block letters, white on blue.

I swept the perimeter of the room, but there were no other exits, nor unusual features. The only way out was the staircase.

 _What_ is _this place?_ I thought as I climbed one step at a time.

I started violently and clutched the metal railing, nearly dropping the pistol, as a voice shattered the tranquility of the room.

"Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center."

 _What the hell?_ I thought. My heart raced. I held the gun up and looked frantically around, spotting no one. But the voice continued, unconcerned:

"Thank you for volunteering to take place in this test. Your contribution to Science is greatly appreciated." The voice was cool, feminine, and disinterested, but something about the timbre of it sent goosebumps rising along my arms. The voice was clipped, precise; the cadence jarring. It sounded like it was autotuned, and it came from everywhere at once.

 _Test_? I thought. _What does she mean, 'test'?_

"Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goal of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur. For your own safety and the safety of others, please refrain from interfering with vital testing apparatus, breaking out of the testing track, throwing unknown electronic components into the incinerator, assisting unusually inept personality constructs in any way or form, or transferring the benevolent overseer of this facility into a potato." There was a soft, electronic trill, and the voice cut out.

 _Did I hit my head?_ I thought as I edged further up the stairs. _I must've hit my head. There's no way this isn't a hallucination. I hit my head. Or I'm drugged. Or dreaming. Or something._ When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw another door a ways down, and something else mounted to the wall: a rounded white security camera, which turned towards me. Fear coiled in my gut when I saw its glowing red lens, but all it did was regard me in silence.

I stared at it, hardly daring to breathe.

After a few seconds, I heard the intercom trill again. "Although we modestly acknowledge that the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment-Observing Observation Device is the paragon of modern security camera design, we ask that you cease observing it and continue to the chamber lock in order to begin the test proper."

The camera twitched towards the door twice, as if egging me on. I took a step, then another, and the camera turned to follow. I stayed as far away from it as possible, sliding my back along the wall as I approached.

"...Sybil?" I said, my voice shaking. I stared into the lens. "Sybil, _please_ tell me that's you. What's going on?" I waited, holding my breath. I prayed for the lens to blink, or for the camera to nod, or _something_. But nothing happened except for that damn voice speaking again.

"The Enrichment Center would like to remind you that the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment-Observing Observation Device does not have a name and will not respond to one. In addition, the Observation Device is not sentient, and therefore—"

"Okay," I said, raising my voice, "who _are_ you? What is this place?"

For a brief moment, there was silence.

"Please proceed to the chamber lock to begin the test proper."

"Not until you tell me where I am and how I can get out of here," I said. I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. I couldn't find a speaker. The voice seemed to come from the very walls around me.

"Please proceed to the chamber lock to begin the test proper."

"Just tell me!"

"Please proceed to the chamber lock to begin the test proper."

"Fuck off."

The response was instantaneous.

I saw motion out of the corner of my eye. I turned. With a hydraulic screech, an entire section of the floor popped out of the ground, tilting up at a ninety degree angle and forming a fucking _wall_. It paused, as if considering, and then rammed into me. Caught off guard, I went sprawling. The gun flew out of my hand and slid out of sight. I scrambled to my feet as the wall whined closer, pushing me down the hallway.

"All right, all right!" I yelled. Frantically, I looked around for my gun, but I didn't see it anywhere. The wall didn't give me a chance to look for it; it kept moving, forcing me along until I had reached a small chamber at the end of the hall. There was another camera and a door at the other end of the room. My pistol had skidded to a halt on a floor panel just in front of the door. Sighing with relief, I stepped forward, but halted several feet away when something went _zap_ and a glowing, rippling sheet of _something_ shimmered into existence over the doorway.

 _Definitely hit my head_ , I thought. _Because that looks like a fucking_ force field.

The camera turned towards me. "Please note the incandescent particle field across the doorway," the voice said blithely, as if I had somehow missed the giant glowing rectangle. "This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid will indiscriminately emancipate any unauthorized material it comes in contact with, including watches, wallets, body piercings, pacemakers, unmodified root vegetables—"

There was a pneumatic whine, and a floor panel tilted upward, catapulting my pistol towards the Emancipation Grid. There was a brilliant flash of light and the sudden smell of ozone. I blinked, and it was gone.

"—and firearms," the voice finished.

I gaped.

What. The. Fuck.

I couldn't have moved even if I wanted to. I was terrified of moving forward to step through the transparent thing that had just _vaporized_ my only defense. But at the same time, I couldn't go backwards; the wall blocked my retreat.

Rock. Hard place. Or maybe more like _wall_ and _glowing energy field_ _that was probably going to disintegrate me._

"Is it...safe?" I squeaked.

When the voice came, this time it was vaguely amused.

"The Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid has a 100% success rate at preventing theft of test chamber testing apparatus by violent mute lunatics."

"That's not what I asked at all," I said. _Oh my god_ , I thought. _My cell phone. There's no way my cell phone will go through that_. I reached into my skirt pocket with shaking hands and withdrew the phone. Still no signal.

 _What about wifi_? I thought suddenly. _If there's wifi I can hack, I can make a VoIP call!_

The camera shifted downward to watch my fingers as I swiped through various screens, firing up my custom frequency analysis app. Annoyed, I turned my back on the camera. But my heart sank when the phone returned the scan results: zero. There were no wireless signals on either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands.

My cell phone was useless, but I didn't want to let it get destroyed. I didn't even want to let go of it.

"Can I...leave this behind and pick it up later?" I asked hopefully, waving the phone at the camera.

The camera tracked the phone, moving a few degrees back and forth.

"Place the item on the floor of the chamber lock before passing through the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid," the voice instructed eventually. "It will be analyzed further."

With one last mournful look at my phone, I did as I was told, setting it on the ground. No sooner had I done so than a tiny gap opened up in the wall down by the floor. Alarmed, I took a step back, and a moment later _something_ —maybe some sort of robotic arm—shot out of the space, grabbed the phone, and whisked it back into the hole, which closed itself a moment later. I gawked.

"When...when will I get that back?" I finally had the presence of mind to ask.

In response, the wall bumped me forward again. With a shriek, I fell right through the force field. My skin tingled and crackled as if a static charge were passing over me. I landed hard on my hands and knees. I rolled over on my back just in time to see the door slam shut and lock, narrowly missing my feet in the process.

 _Well. At least I'm not disintegrated,_ I thought.

Stifling a groan, I sat up, propping myself up with my arms. Something warm was pressing against my thigh. I reached down to about where my pocket was, but there was nothing inside.

 _My flashlight!_ It was gone, leaving nothing behind but a few blackened flakes. My wallet was gone too—and with it, my cash and ID. All I had left was the clothes I wore.

 _You have_ got _to be kidding,_ I thought. _That didn't just happen. I'm hallucinating. Maybe I'm in a coma. Or dreaming_? I pinched myself to test out that theory and immediately regretted it.

 _Okay, just—calm down,_ I told myself, taking a deep breath. _Focus on getting out of here first. You can always panic later._

I examined my new surroundings. The room, an empty cube about thirty feet on a side, was very plain and downright clinical in its abbreviation. The four walls were formed from dark corrugated metal of some sort, polished to a shine. The ceiling and floor were both comprised of the same plain white panels as the hallway up in the basement. Across from me was one of the circular doors, shut tight. Over to one side was some sort of massive glass tube—it had to be three, maybe four feet across—hanging down from the ceiling and ending a dozen feet above the ground. A sleek white podium was positioned directly in front of it. On the opposite side of the room was a round platform raised several inches off the floor and colored a dark, blood red. A massive frosted window was set high up in one of the walls, casting cold radiance into the room from powerful fluorescent light fixtures behind the glass. Aside from a security camera mounted to the wall and a large blue X sign on the wall next to the door, there was nothing else of interest within the room.

Glancing up at the camera, I walked straight to the door and stood expectantly in front of it. The camera tracked my movements with a soft whirring and stared down at me. But the door didn't open.

"Hey," I called out, "how about opening the door?" I waited. Nothing happened. I paced left and right. The camera still panned to follow my movements, but the voice stayed silent.

 _Maybe you're missing a sensor or something_ , I thought. My eyes were drawn to the circular door frame, and then to the blue X sign next to it. For the first time, I noticed a strip of unlit blue lights embedded in the wall and floor. They ran from the X sign, down the wall, and across the floor. I followed them to the red platform, circling it once.

 _I wonder,_ I thought. _This almost looks like..._

Tentatively, I put one foot on the platform. It sank several inches, emitting a warm yellow glow from within. At the same time, the strip of blue lights turned orange and the door slid open with a startling hiss.

 _...like a_ button.

Grinning, I headed for the door, but as soon as I took my foot off the button, it slid closed again.

Well then.

I experimented with the giant button, jumping on it (all that accomplished was making the door close and open with each leap), standing still for thirty seconds to see if it would lock in the down position (it didn't), and seeing if I could trigger it fast enough to confuse the door into being stuck open (nope). Clearly, the answer to keeping the door open was somewhere else in the room.

I glanced up at the observation window as I walked across the room to the podium, the only other object of interest. It looked like there was a desk behind the frosted glass, maybe even a chair—but it didn't look like anybody was sitting in it. Strange. On the other hand, why would they need to sit there when they had all the security cameras?

Something about the empty room sent shivers up and down my spine.

The podium turned out to be topped by a button about six inches across. It was colored the same dull red as the giant floor button and it looked really, _really_ inviting to press. I glanced up at the glass tube hanging from the ceiling. The bottom of it was some sort of high-tech trapdoor. A line of lights led up the wall from the podium to the tube—it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the button did.

 _Well, here goes nothing_ , I thought, gulping. Before I could second-guess myself, I slammed a fist down on it.

The line of lights turned orange. With a heavy _clunk_ that I could feel through my shoes, a two-foot-square cube dropped out of the overhead door and landed at my feet. A second later, the door irised itself shut.

I tried lifting the cube. The thing had to weigh at least fifty pounds. But that gave me an idea. I got behind it and began pushing it towards the giant button. It slid across the floor panels with surprisingly little effort. Getting it up onto the button, however, proved to be more difficult. I quickly gave up on lifting and instead tried tilting it up on one corner and pushing it over. I crouched down, dug my fingers under the recessed bottom lip, and stood, lifting with my legs.

With one good heave, the cube tipped over onto the gigantic button. I was elated to see the button light up and sink again. The strip of lights along the floor lit up orange, and behind me, there was the welcome whoosh of the door opening. The blue X on the wall had changed to an orange check mark.

This time, the door stayed open.

I ran for it, just in case it decided to lock me in here again. As soon as I had passed into the hallway beyond, the door slid shut behind me.

"Congratulations on solving your first test," the mysterious voice said smoothly. Down the hall, a camera pivoted towards me. "You should be _very proud_."

" _That_ was the test?" I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder and glaring at the camera. "Seeing if I could open the door with a concrete cube? What kind of whack-job test was _that_?"

"A test to establish whether or not an uninitiated and unaided test subject could discover the casual relationship established by placing the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube on the Aperture Science Heavy-Duty 1500-Megawatt Super-Colliding Super-Button, which in this test chamber causes the opening of an Aperture Science Highly Secure Dual Panel Passageway Access Restriction Device."

It took me a few seconds to process all that.

"...can't you just call them a cube, a giant button, and a door?"

"We have invested many years into the development of our products and we are proud of them. We prefer to use their trademark names whenever possible. Here come your test results: you are the 5,453rd fastest test subject on record and also the 2nd most massive. Congratulations on your body confidence. You rate very highly in this area."

My mind was still thinking over the absurdly long product names; it took me a few seconds to catch the remark about my body.

"Wait, what the hell? 2nd most _massive_? What, were all your other test subjects _twigs_? And what does body confidence even have to with putting a cube on a damn button?"

"Side effects of high body confidence may include denial of excessive weight."

Was—was she trying to get under my skin by calling me _fat_?

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

"Please continue to the chamber lock to continue to the next test."

"Hell no. I want out of here."

"Please continue to the chamber lock to continue to the next test."

"Can I just go home now? Please? I did your stupid test."

"Please continue to the chamber lock to continue to the next test."

"Ugh," I growled. But I complied, not wanting to be pushed along by a wall a second time. I could tell that it was futile to argue with the voice when it started repeating itself.

 _Almost like an infinite loop,_ I mused to myself as I approached a door at the end of the hall. It slid open, revealing another lift chamber. For a moment, my heart rose with hope of escape—but then I remembered what the voice had said: _continue to the next test._

Sure enough, when I entered the lift, it headed downward.

"Not again," I sighed.

#####

Elsewhere, Root wasn't having a much better time.

"What do you mean, _gone_?" Root said. She looked up from the computer, peering around the lab for a certain frizzy-haired young woman. "She was just here. Did she freak out and leave?"

[CELL SIGNAL LOST. UNABLE TO CONTACT. PRIORITY.]

The message came not as sound, nor text, but as thought and meaning channeled directly into her mind via her neural implant. _Priority_ was not something she liked hearing, especially not on a field expedition that was supposed to be a walk in the park.

She stood, taking the pistol out from the waistband of her jeans and chambering a round.

"Last known position?" she asked, all business, and the Machine responded by placing a waypoint marker over a door at the back of the lab. Root made her way to the doorway, moving cautiously.

"It's dark," she noted. She clicked on the lights and crept into the adjacent lab. "Why didn't she turn on the lights?"

[UNKNOWN. CAMERA ERROR. OFFLINE FOR 6 DAYS.]

Root glanced at the defunct camera hanging from the ceiling and then passed under it. As she did so, the Machine repositioned the waypoint a few dozen feet beyond the corner up ahead. Root turned the corner, her gun held at the ready, but there were no threats. She approached the blank back wall. Judging from the distance indicator beneath the waypoint, Elizabeth's last known position was somewhere beyond it.

"It's a dead end," Root said. "Unless she went out into the hall?" She looked to the left, where a small door led back out towards the elevators.

[NO. ASSET NOT VISIBLE IN CAMERA FEED. ASSET NOT IN STAIRWELL. ASSET NOT IN ELEVATOR.]

"So she's still here. Lizzy?" Root raised her voice and looked around the room, peering between racks of equipment. "Come on, Elizabeth, this isn't funny. Elizabeth? Can you hear me?"

[UNABLE TO CONTACT. LAST KNOWN POSITION INDICATED.]

The waypoint flashed insistently in her peripheral vision, ghostly blue against the gray concrete wall.

"Your waypoint is off," Root said, inspecting the back of the room. She moved back and forth, eying the distance to the waypoint by parallax. It matched what The Machine reported—about one meter. "It's in the wall."

[802.11 TRAINGULATION ACCURACY XZ +/- 0.71m Y +/-2.1m]

[ACCELEROMETER ACCURACY COMBINED XZ +/- 0.22m Y +/- 0.3m]

Root ran her fingers over the surface, feeling for irregularities that would indicate a hidden entrance. "What's behind here?" She rapped her fist against the wall. There was no reverberation or rattling, no indication of any space behind it. It was solid.

The Machine paused, and then reported:

[MATERIAL 0-0.5m CONCRETE 0.5m+ DIRT]

[RECONCILIATION ERROR]

"Well, she couldn't have just—phased through the wall," Root said. "Any sign of her on any of the cameras?"

[NO. CELL SIGNAL LOST. UNABLE TO CONTACT. PRIORITY.]

"Okay," Root said. She turned around, facing back the way she had come. She nervously tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Um—show me her steps as best you can from about...thirty seconds before you lost contact."

There was a pause, and a moment later, a fiery, glowing line snaked around the corner at about waist height, rendered by the compact graphical chipset in Root's implant and superimposed directly on her vision. The line paused, wavered from side to side, and then slowly stretched towards the rear of the room. Root stepped aside to allow it to pass (although she knew perfectly well that the line wasn't tangible). When the line got near the wall, it suddenly moved to the left, parallel to the wall, then stopped after about a meter. There was a pause of several seconds, and then the line traced its way back towards the center of the wall—

—and went right through it.

[ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.]

"Look, she didn't go through the wall, okay? Calm down, sweetie."

[CONTACTING AGENT SHAW]

"Uh, hold up, there's no need to do that just yet," Root said with a nervous laugh.

[WELLBEING OF ASSET ELIZABETH RUBEN RISK-SEVERITY PRODUCT OF PHYSICAL DAMAGE TO ANALOG INTERFACE]

"I'm sure she's fine, we just have to figure out—"

"Who's fine?"

Root closed her eyes, counted to five, and put on her most cheerful voice. "Hi, sweetie," she said. "What are you up to tonight?"

Shaw's voice crackled in her ear—literally—as the implant conducted sound into her eardrum. "I was enjoying my mac n' cheese before you interrupted me."

"Oh, sorry about that," Root said airy. "You can just go back to it. I'll call you in the morning."

"Don't give me that shit. You used the emergency number. Who'd you piss off?"

Root silently cursed the Machine.

"Nobody. Really. It's not a big deal."

"Don't make me pull out the iron, Root. Either you're gonna tell me or your bossy binary girlfriend is, and since she's the one that called..."

The hacker rolled her eyes. "Look, it's probably just a glitch, but—She thinks Elizabeth kinda...disappeared."

For a second, there was dead silence on the line.

"What do you mean, _disappeared_?" Shaw hissed, her voice dangerously calm.

"I lost track of her, and now she's gone." Root said quickly.

"You _lost_ Elizabeth?"

"Well—kinda—she was just here, and then I started cracking into the servers, and a few minutes later I looked up and She said she'd vanished."

"What the _fuck_ , Root. I'm coming over."

"Sweetie—"

"Don't even start." There was rustling on the other end of the line—Shaw was probably rummaging for her go bag or grabbing a jacket. "The Machine sent me the address. I'll be there in ten. You'd better tell me _everything_. And if she gets hurt because of something you did, I _am_ going to taze you."

#####


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N If you missed it, I updated Feature Creep as well today! Go check it out!_

 _#####_

I huddled on the floor of the lift, staring at my knees, until the cab slid to a stop in yet another one of the circular antechambers with the video screens. The looping footage had changed; now the screens showed a stylized, isometric rendering of a cube being dropped on a button, making a door open. Between each iteration of the loop, the animation briefly faded away to be replaced by the Aperture Science logo.

I prowled the perimeter of the room, seeking any escape route, but there were none. Once again, the only way out was the staircase. Glumly, I climbed it one step at a time.

"So what is this place?" I asked the air as I ascended the stairs. "Where am I? What's the point of these...tests?"

"The Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center utilizes test-based methodologies to further science," the voice said.

"You just said absolutely nothing. Where _am_ I? What are you even testing?""

"You are locate in the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. In this testing track, you have been assigned to test the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube, the Aperture Science Heavy-Duty 1500-Megawatt Super-Colliding Super-Button, and the Aperture Science Stationary Por—" The voice suddenly became garbled, awash in static, and fizzled out. The closing trill sounded like an afterthought.

Suspicious. And completely uninformative.

I had to step through another force field to get past the next doorway. It tingled and stung, and I moved through it as quickly as possible. Beyond that was another sterile testing chamber. This one had a massive sign near the entrance, six feet tall and two wide, with plain black letters on a glowing white background. A giant numeral 01 was emblazoned on the upper half, with a smaller 1 / 2 above a half-filled progress bar near the bottom and a bunch of square icons. Most of the icons were grayed out, but a few were solid black; I saw a stylized diagram of a falling cube and a button being pressed, as well as a stick figure walking through some sort of circular opening in the wall. Some of the other icons—the gray ones—made no sense. There was one that had a stick figure jumping into a hole and, weirdest of all, was a crossed out diagram of a stick figure drinking from a fountain.

Just _seeing_ the picture immediately made me feel thirsty. When had I last had anything to eat or drink? I pushed the thought aside as I studied the new room.

This room was a little smaller than the first one. Three of the walls were floor-to-ceiling windows, each of which looked into a different chamber. My goal, the exit door, was straight ahead. A strip of blue lights leading away from the door led under the glass and into the room to the left, which contained one of the large floor buttons. The corresponding cube to trigger the button was in the room to the right. Easy enough, except for the minor fact that each of the rooms seemed completely sealed off. I couldn't see any way to get inside.

A camera above the door watched my every move.

There was only one item of interest where I could get to it: a podium, positioned just beside a pair of sleek columns mounted to the wall. The columns were only a few inches across but stood six feet tall; they were placed about three feet apart. A faint blue glow leaked out from beneath their white plastic covers and, as I neared, I could hear a low, unnerving hum emanating from within.

I eyed them nervously as I approached the podium. Obviously, the button on it had something to do with this peculiar apparatus on the wall. There was nothing to do but press it.

Shrugging, I tapped the button and stood back. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a gentle _thwop_ , an opening appeared in the wall between the two columns. I took one look and realized that one of two things was clearly broken: my brain, or the universe.

In front of me, rimmed in swirling blue energy, was an oval hole in the wall, and on the other side of that hole was the room with the button in it. _The room that was_ _behind_ _me_. Through the hole, standing on the other side of the glass, I saw a young woman. She had her back to me. She was wearing a blue skirt and a white blouse and flat black Mary Janes, and she had a frizzy poof of curly brown hair—just like me.

Terrified, I whipped around to see that one of the walls in the room beyond the glass now had a whirling orange hole, and through it, I saw my own backside. I moved my arms. Paced back and forth. So did the double standing on the other side of the hole.

"What—what is this?" I gasped, backing away from the hole. Through it, I saw my doppelganger stepping back towards the glass.

This couldn't be happening. It wasn't physically _possible_. This was like the real-world equivalent of a blue screen of death, and it scared the shit out of me.

Throughout all this, the camera above the door gazed at me without saying a word.

"What _is_ this?" I said, staring wide-eyed at the lens. "What—this—what are you doing to my head _?"_ I glanced back at the hole linking the two rooms, which shouldn't have been physically _possible_ , but there it was, casually defying the laws of physics without a care in the world.

The voice remained silent.

Trembling, I jammed my fist down against the button, hoping to make this logic-defying _thing_ go away. And for a split-second, it did. The energy collapsed in on itself, releasing a violent flurry of sparks, but then it swirled back to life. When I could see through the hole again, the scene had changed. Now I was looking into the room with the cube.

A glance over my shoulder confirmed that the orange hole had moved from the room with the button to the room with the cube. A third press of the button made the orange hole appear in the exit room.

So that was how it worked. One end, the blue one, was fixed; the orange side of the hole could move around. Each time I pressed the button, the blue-rimed hole in front of me sparked and reconfigured itself to reveal one of the three destinations.

Pressing the button twice more cycled the...wormhole?...back to the room with the cube. My goal was in sight. All that remained was to step through and grab it.

 _Oh God_ , I thought. _What if it disappears while I'm in there? What if it collapses when I'm stepping through_?

I stumbled forward, hesitating, my leg muscles trying to carry me forward and hold me back simultaneously. The desire to escape this hellhole won out over my disinclination to expose myself to weird and potentially dangerous time-space phenomenon, and I found myself standing in front of the wormhole, which was a little taller than I was. I could _feel_ the energy coming off it in waves. I smelled ozone.

 _Come on,_ I thought. _You can do this. Just don't think about it. The cube is right there. Run in and grab it_. _Don't think about it. Don't think about it!_

I extended a single finger, reaching out ever so carefully towards the hole. The colorful energy dancing around it seemed to have no effect on my hand as I waved it in front of, then _inside_ the wormhole.

 _Screw it_ , I thought. I steeled myself, crossed my fingers, and jumped through the hole, praying that I hadn't just done something suicidal—

—and I tripped over the cube in the room beyond, sending me ass over teakettle until I rolled to a stop against the window separating me from the main chamber. It had worked—now I was inside the sealed room with the cube.

 _Don't think about it—_

Wasting no time, I scrambled to my feet and started "rolling" the cube to get it in position before the wormhole in the wall. I lined it up just right and gave it a good shove, sending it through the hole, and I followed as quickly as I could, not wanting to get stuck in a doorless room.

Once I was back in the main room, I hit the button again to switch the rooms, then shoved the cube back through the wormhole, which was now connected ( _How? Don't think about it—don't think about it—)_ to the room with the floor button. I ran in just long enough to get the cube on the button, ran out again, switched the wormhole to the exit room, and got the hell out of Dodge.

 _This has got to be a dream. Got to be a nightmare. This just isn't_ possible _._

Once the door had safely shut, locking out the physical impossibility behind me, I sighed with relief and collapsed against the wall, sliding myself inelegantly down to the floor beneath a security camera.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" I asked, pointing accusingly towards the door and the whatever-the-hell-it-was behind it. "Some kind of wormhole?"

"A portal," the voice said. "Rest assured, these intra-dimensional gates have proven to be completely safe."

"Right, because I'm going to trust the voice that melted my gun and shoved me through a forcefield."

"Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid. We prefer to use our trademark names whenever possible."

"What the fuck ever."

A pause. "Please continue to the chamber lock to continue to the next test."

"Oh come _on!"_ I yelled. What was with this nutjob lady and testing? "Can't I just—!"

The wall behind me suddenly _moved_ , shoving me forward face-first into the floor. I caught myself just in time to keep my nose from getting smashed.

Giving the camera the finger, I picked myself up and shuffled down the hallway to the lift, darting through another zappy forcefield.

"Congratulations," the voice said cheerfully as I descended the stairs to the lift tube. "You passed your first test involving portals. We didn't think it was possible for these time-space constructs to transport an object of your mass. You proved our hypothesis wrong and furthered _science_. Great job."

"Fuck. You."

The lift, just like all the other lifts I'd encountered in this madhouse, headed downward as soon as I entered. I had to be hundreds of feet underground by now, maybe even thousands. Just how deep did this place _go_?

A minute or two later, the lift arrived at its stop. I stepped out and headed for the door to the next test chamber. What was I going to have to deal with this time? A black hole? Ray guns? Lasers? Aliens?

The door at the top of the stairs slid open to reveal a surprisingly plain white room. Suspicious, I stepped inside. No sooner had I done so than the door closed and locked, leaving me trapped—there were no exits.

"Okay, what's the deal?" I asked nervously.

"You have completed this introductory testing track...adequately," the voice said. "Your contributions to science have been greatly appreciated."

"Does this mean I get to go now?" I said hopefully.

"Unfortunately, further testing requires a change in your attire—"

"What? _No!_ " I yelled. I stomped my foot like a little kid—I couldn't help it. I was _so_ done with this fucking place. "No more testing! I want to go home _! Let me out!_ "

In response, some of the wall panels slid aside, revealing shuttered vents. A moment later, a breeze formed in the room as air was forced in, bringing with it some sort of sickly, medicinal scent. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn't something I should've been breathing. Even a single whiff was enough to make me dizzy. My knees gave out almost immediately and I collapsed to the floor.

"...processing...continue testing..." The voice droned, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. Within seconds, I had passed out.

#####

[AGENT SHAW HAS ARRIVED.]

Root knew this, of course. The Machine had helpfully tagged Shaw's position with a moving waypoint, which allowed Root to pinpoint right when Shaw stopped in front of the locked doors on the ground floor.

Root gulped and put on her most charming smile before she opened the door.

"Tell me _exactly_ what happened," Shaw snarled as she stepped into the hallway. She kicked the door closed behind her. "What the fuck is going on?"

So much for the smile. It'd been worth a shot. Root kept it up anyway.

"I'm sure it's just a glitch," Root said. "She probably got herself locked in a broom closet or something."

"Where did you last see her?"

Root motioned down the hall towards the elevator. "Basement. Come on."

To say that the ride downstairs was awkward would've won an award for the understatement of the year. Shaw's jaw was set in a tight line and her hands were clenched tight around her pistol. She followed Root in silence, like a stormcloud poised to cleave the sky with lightning, until they arrived at the lab where Elizabeth had (apparently) walked straight through a wall.

"The Machine says she walked up here," Root said, "up to the wall—and that's where we lost her."

"Lost? _Lost?_ " Shaw's voice was hard enough to cut steel. " _Lost_ is what happens to your fucking car keys, Root! Not Elizabeth! How the fuck did the _Machine_ lose track of her?"

"I don't know, and she doesn't either."

Shaw made an inarticulate noise of rage and began to pace back and forth in front of the wall, her fists clenched.

"Look, I'm _sure_ she's fine," Root said, doing her best to sound soothing. "She couldn't have gone far."

"She wouldn't be missing in the first place if you hadn't dragged her out on some fucking harebrained field trip _again._ Do you even remember what happened last month?"

"Sweetie—"

"No, don't start with that bullshit!" Shaw seethed. "We had to break her out of the police station after your last stupid plan went south! She was like five minutes away from Agent McSleepyface swooping in to take her into federal custody. Even _Carter_ couldn't make it go away!"

"C'mon, it wasn't _that_ bad," Root said soothingly. "We got her out and even managed to fix up the arrest record and surveillance videos. Donnelly thinks he's looking for some redhead named Marian."

"That's not the point!"

"It wasn't like I was _trying_ to get her in trouble. I _like_ Elizabeth, you know?"

"Then stop dragging her on these stupid late-night break-ins!"

"I didn't drag her; I asked and she said yes."

"You shouldn't have asked!"

"So, wait, it's okay when _you_ ask her to come along and break into somebody's computer, but when _I_ do it, it's not?"

"That—that's different," Shaw said defensively.

"Really?"

"Okay, fine, you—you know what?" Shaw slicked back her hair and took a deep breath. "We can blame later. Right now I want Elizabeth _back_. Has your cyber stalker figured out what's going on yet?"

"No," Root said, and for once, she sounded nervous. "It's…strange. She swears Elizabeth hasn't shown up on any of the cameras—and _all_ the exits are covered."

"She's still here then. Let's find her."

"All right. Split up?"

"And have you disappear on me too? Hell no. Stick together."

"Like birds of a feather," Root promised.

"If you start that rhyming crap, I'm so tazing you," Shaw grumbled. But she kept close to Root as they began to explore the lab.

#####


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Oh no, the plot thickens!_

 _I wasn't planning on getting Shaw as involved, but I think I can work her into the storyline and even expand on some story threads I hadn't been considering._

#####

I floated in a haze of darkness. Dull thoughts, shapeless and sluggish, drifted through my mind. I saw Shaw's face, her brows knitted together in concern and worry, and wondered what was wrong. _Something_ was definitely wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It was like the high-pitched whine of a cold TV or the repetitive thrum of two hard drives just slightly out-of-phase; it was a feeling just barely tangible, but once I was aware of it, there was no way I could miss it.

Through my eyelids, I saw red.

I forced my eyes open and regretted it immediately. Squinting, I held up my hand to protect my eyes from the harsh overhead lights. Even with my limited vision, it was immediately obvious that something was off. My arm, for starters. I blinked furiously and focused on my sleeve. It was orange—a lurid, hazmat-suit shade of orange I never, in a million years, would've been caught dead wearing.

"What the hell?" I asked thickly. I shakily propped myself up on my elbows and looked down at my body. What I saw was unsettling: while I'd been unconscious, my entire outfit had been replaced with a butt-ugly orange jumpsuit. Given the lack of sags or wrinkles, it seemed to have been tailored specifically to my body. The Aperture Science logo was emblazoned in white just above my breast.

It reminded me of a prison uniform.

My feet hadn't been spared. I was no longer wearing my Mary Janes; now my feet were enclosed in a pair of high-tech boots, glossy white with black trim. It looked like they were made of metal and plastic. They went almost all the way up to my knees—and they had heels _._ They just _had_ to have heels. Fortunately, the strange metal strip that extended down from the back of my calves and curved under my feet (some kind of springs?) only added two or three inches to my height, but it was still going to be a bitch to move around. I'd only worn high heels once in my life, and that once had been enough.

 _Great_ , I thought as I sat up on the cot. _Just great. Now it's a toss-up between getting eaten by a wormhole and breaking my ankle..._ again _. Also, someone saw me naked and dressed me while I was unconscious. Totally not creepy at all._

"Why'd you take my clothes?" I asked the room. The walls were barren but for a single door and a security camera. It must've had a microphone, because the voice responded right away.

"Your previous attire was inappropriate for rigorous scientific testing. _And_ for anyone your age to be wearing."

It took a few seconds for the remark to register.

"What? Hey!" I crossed my arms. "What I wear is _my_ business. What are you, the fashion police?"

"Your current attire has been designed to maximize your testing effectiveness."

"Right, because everybody knows that high heels are the best shoes to wear for lifting giant cubes and tripping through wormholes."

"Aperture Science Weighted Storage—"

"Shut _up_ ," I snapped, and surprisingly, the voice obliged.

I stood, holding tight to the edge of the bed to fight off a sudden wave of vertigo. Once the dizziness faded, I took a few tentative steps to try out my new center of gravity. Immediately, I could tell that there was something off about these boots. I should've been wobbling all over the place like I'd been doing on my prom night—but my steps were surprisingly sure and stable.

Suspicious.

I made my way to the door. _Please let this lead me back to Root_ , I thought, but of course it didn't. Beyond the door was yet another lift chamber.

Swearing under my breath, I settled in for the ride.

My heart sunk when I saw the sign for the next test chamber. I was greeted by a massive "00" and a smaller "1 / 19" progress indicator. _Nineteen_ of these things in a row? The thought made me sick.

I skimmed the symbols along the bottom of the sign. One of them caught my eye: it was a stick figure that appeared to be jumping off a ledge.

How encouraging.

I entered the chamber and found myself on a raised ledge overlooking a wide square space. In the center was a podium holding some sort of contraption that looked suspiciously like a weapon. Even as I watched, eerie blue energy began to crackle around three prongs spaced around the business end of the whatever-it-was. A piercing whine gave way to an anti-climatic _thwop_ as a brilliant bolt of energy blasted from the end of the device, hit the wall, and spread out to produce a blue portal. Its orange counterpart swirled serenely behind a glass partition.

I walked the length of the ledge, searching for a way down, but there was no way to get to the podium without falling at least ten feet. I lowered myself down as far as I could, dangling from my fingertips, before I let myself fall. Surprisingly, there wasn't much of an impact. Maybe the heels of the boots had absorbed it.

The voice spoke as I approached the podium.

"This is the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. With it, you can create your own portals. The device has been configured to emit only a single portal frequency until you are sufficiently familiar with it."

I circled the device, taking great care not to step in front of the opening at the front. It had a sleek, futuristic look to it, just like the security cameras and the boots; it was all white and black plastic cast in flowing, smooth lines, with the three-pronged barrel protruding from an elegantly curved main body. Gingerly, I reached out and grasped the device. It was way lighter than I had expected. My hands settled naturally into position, one hand grasping the molded trigger assembly at the back, the other supporting the underside of the barrel. Once the device was nestled comfortably in my grip, the podium withdrew and sank into the ground.

"Before using the device, please note the following safety recommendations. Do not touch the operational end of the device. Do not look directly at the operational end of the device. Do not submerge the device in liquid, even partially. Most importantly, under no circumstances should you—"

The sound abruptly stuttered and glitched before cutting out entirely.

"Seriously?" I asked. "You leave out the most important 'don't do this'?" When no response came, I added, "I'll have you know, I have a lot of experience in software testing, and that means I _will_ find a way to break this thing whether I mean to or not. So if it's gonna explode or something when I find a null pointer exception, I'd really like to know now."

Still no response. Great.

Sighing, I fingered the trigger assembly. There wasn't much left to do except to see what would happen when I pulled it. Stepping back as far away from the opposite wall as possible, I took careful aim, exhaled, and pulled the trigger.

Another _thwop_ , another bolt of blue lightning spat from the end of the device with a surprising amount of recoil. The bolt ripped across the room, hit the wall—and exploded into a shower of blue sparks, leaving behind my very own blue portal. The old blue portal fizzled and collapsed into nothingness.

 _Well now_ , I thought. _That's actually pretty cool_.

Predictably, looking through the new portal showed the room from behind the glass partition. If I positioned myself just right, I could see my own backside by peering through the portal. But that was beyond unnerving, so I didn't dawdle long. I took a deep breath and scurried through the portal and then, from there, through the exit door on the other side of the glass.

"Well done," the voice said. "As part of an optional but highly amusing testing protocol, we are artificially inflating the magnitude of your success. Great job. Excellent work. You're our number one test subject, and you've even managed to overcome your obvious aversion to physical activity."

 _Don't take the bait_ , I thought to myself as I headed down the hall. The next door led to a larger chamber divided by a wide chasm. The exit door, of course, was on the other side, directly across from me, a circle of white and gray among the dark corrugated wall panels. There was one of the floor buttons (I was _not_ going to call it a super-colliding-super-button, thank you very much) and a swirling orange portal on the wall next to me. This one, unlike the others, was opaque, probably because I hadn't fired off a matching blue portal yet. There was little else of interest in the room.

Curious, I stepped up to the edge of the pit and peered over the edge. It _was very_ deep, with what looked like some sort of hallway leading away down at the bottom. The gap was far too wide to jump across. But I didn't need to jump—not with the physics-defying portal gun I'd gotten from the last chamber.

 _Hah! This is going to be a piece of cake_. I hefted the portal gun and gave the trigger a good squeeze. But instead of a satisfying swirl of energy when the portal bolt hit the wall, there was a tiny shower of sparks. Frowning, I tried again. And again. No dice.

Finally, I got pissed off and aimed at a wall on my side of the gap, and this time the portal took. The wall I had just hit was one of the light gray concrete panels; the walls that refused to take were made of the dark corrugated metal. Good to know.

So the portal gun was out. Next, I tried the button. Standing on it made a bridge of articulated panels swing out from either side of the gap on hydraulic struts, but predictably, as soon as I stepped off the button, they quickly retracted. I needed a cube. But there wasn't one, nor was there one of those glass pipes that delivered the cubes.

I tried the door again. It had locked behind me.

That left the pit.

I peered over the edge again. The floor was _really_ far down there, like at least fifty, maybe sixty feet, and none of the panels at the bottom were the right color for a portal. (I even tried shooting one at the floor, but it didn't work—either I couldn't put portals on floors, or the dark gray tiles weren't the right material for a portal.)

I thought back to the sign by the entryway of the test chamber, with its little cartoon of somebody jumping off a ledge, and blanched.

I mean, if it _worked_ , it was the simplest way to get down there, but if I was wrong about this…

I looked down at the strange boots I was wearing, then back to the pit yawning before me, remembering the gentler-than-expected drop from the ledge in the previous chamber. But…there was no way the boots could keep me safe from a fifty-foot drop. Was there? Was it really too much of a stretch given the universe-breaking portals, and the lifts that glided along in glass tubes, and the walls that moved by themselves, and the force fields that could melt guns, and all the other weird shit down here?

 _Just don't think about it_ , I thought. _It's like jumping off the rocks at the lake back home. Except, you know, no water at the bottom._ _And twice as far. And didn't I just tell me not to think about it?_

Before I could worry too much about the insanity I was about to commit, I took a deep breath, prayed, clutched the portal device for dear life, and stepped out into open air.

My stomach jumped into my throat as I fell. The wind rushed around my body as the floor rose up, faster, faster—

— _oh shit, oh shit, ohshitthatwsstupid_ —

And I stopped.

Suddenly.

But there was hardly any impact. In fact, the landing was even softer than when I had dropped down from the ledge. One moment I was falling, and the next, I…wasn't.

I sank to my knees, shaking, heart pounding, and didn't even try to stand for a good thirty seconds.

 _That's it,_ I thought. _It's official. You're crazy, or the world is._

 _Just don't think about it._

When I felt like I could stand again without falling over, I carefully pushed myself to my feet and examined my surroundings, not daring to look up. The hallway leading away from the bottom of the pit dead-ended in front of a cube dispenser tube, with a cube sitting innocently right below it. Just beyond that was one of the light gray wall panels.

I put two and two together, fired a portal at the wall, shoved the cube through, and found myself back up in the chamber above.

Magic? Science? Insanity? Maybe all three.

 _I wonder what happens if you put one portal above another, ceiling to floor_? I mused the possibilities over as I maneuvered the cube onto the button, mostly as an excuse to not think about my little flirt with death a minute ago. _Could we get free energy out of a pair of portals?_ I continued to think about this as I crossed the bridge— _don't look down_ —and stepped through the exit doorway into the lift chamber.

"Congratulations," the voice said cheerfully. "Thanks to your testing, we have discovered that the Aperture Science Long-Fall Boots _can_ successfully arrest the rapid descent of even an object with as much mass as you. You have earned two Science points."

"Do I get to go home when I get to ten?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yes," the voice said, and I knew it was lying.

#####

The rides in the lift were long and boring. There wasn't much to see out the glass; wasn't much to do but think and worry.

I tried to do more of the first and less of the second. Root and Shaw _had_ to be looking for me by now. They'd figure a way to break me out of this crazy place. All I had to do was stay calm and not piss off the lady who could crush me with the very walls.

And speaking of the lady...

I had a suspicion. An utterly implausible suspicion, one that had been quietly stewing at the back of my mind. It was a crazy idea. At least, it would've been crazy a few hours ago. Now, after seeing a gun that could shoot wormholes and boots that could protect me from a fifty-foot fall, the idea just seemed...well...so _pedestrian_.

I sighed, risking a glance out the glass. It was still dark. The only indication that I was moving was the muted rush of wind outside.

 _What the hell,_ I thought. _Just ask her already._

Finally, I looked up to the speaker grill in the ceiling of the cab and asked, "Are you an AI?"

The voice did not respond immediately, which only strengthened my suspicion. Its eventual answer pretty much cinched it for me.

"The Enrichment Center would like to remind you that these messages are pre-recorded, and therefore—"

" _Bullshit_ ," I snapped. "I'm not dumb enough to believe that."

There was the opening trill of the intercom, and then, for a second, there was quiet—

"You're right," the voice said.

"Right about not being dumb, or about you being an AI?"

"Yes," the voice said.

"That was supposed to be XOR."

"No."

 _For heaven's sake,_ I thought. _Get your damn boolean logic straight._

"You're _not_ dumb. That would be an insult to dumb people."

"Excuse me?" I said, startled.

Some of the eerie, auto-tuned modulation had fallen away from the voice. The words flowed smoother, but they were no less biting. "You manage to make the average moron look like Edsger Dijkstra. Congratulations. You're the second-dumbest person in the entirety of my database. Only someone whose mental faculties are as degraded as yours would manage to fumble her way into an Aperture Science Trans-Multiverse Enrichment Enhancing Chamber Lock."

I felt my face flush red. Irritated, I opened my mouth, but even as my mind was formulating an appropriate retort, another thought broke in.

"Wait..." I said, fighting to keep my voice even. "Did you say 'multiverse'?"

"Great job," the voice said with fake cheer. "You have managed to pronounce a word with more than two syllables. You get seven Science points. Your score is now negative eighty billion. And one."

"No, seriously, back up. Multiverse? As in, multiple _universes_?"

"You're catching on surprisingly quick. Perhaps some of your generous mass is _actually_ taken up by your brain after all."

"Are you saying I'm in a different _universe_?"

"No. You are currently in our current universe."

"I meant different from the one I started in!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. If that is what you meant, then you should have stated your query with the proper semantics."

"If I wanted to deal with query bullshit, I'd be arguing with SQL Server!" I fumed, but it was an act, a shell; I was filled with dread. There was no way this was happening. It couldn't be. She was just running her mouth. This was all just something this lady...this AI...was saying to get under my skin, like she'd been trying to do for the past few hours.

...right?

 _But then how do you explain the portals? And the boots? And the force fields? And the fact that some evil super genius built a huge underground base beneath New York?_

(Deep down in the back of my mind, a little voice told me I wasn't in New York anymore.)

I waited. When it was clear that the lady—AI—wasn't going to volunteer any further information, I said, "Well?"

"Well what?"

My voice trembled, despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Am I in a different universe than the one I was in—say, an hour ago?"

"I can't tell you where you were an hour ago."

"Why not?"

"Because you were in a different universe."

It was like the lift had run into the ground at terminal velocity. Like getting T-boned by a red light runner. The casual (though still snide) tone of the AI was at complete odds with the monumental statement that I was no longer in New York. No longer on Earth—at least, not the Earth I knew.

The thought was so overwhelming and terrifying, my brain immediately tried to rationalize it away. I mean—it just wasn't physical _possible_. Was it? But the portals weren't supposed to be possible either, and yet I'd spent a good chunk of my...night? Morning? Afternoon? trapezing through them. Maybe it was all an illusion of some kind. Smoke and mirrors. Hidden doors and holograms. Or maybe I was stuck in a simulation—Root had told me a few times about how her implant could run a pretty convincing VR app. Maybe that's what was going on. Yeah. Maybe Root had accidentally trapped me in some weird VR world where the laws of physics didn't apply.

Or maybe it was something more sinister. John had told me loads of times about nefarious organizations that were looking for the Machine. Maybe I'd been forcibly drugged and put under in an attempt to ply me for information, although I could imagine ways that were faster and more effective.

Maybe I was just dreaming. Or high.

Any of those would've been preferable to the reality that had been presented to me.

"How is that even possible?" I whispered.

"You entered an Aperture Science Trans-Multiverse Enrichment Enhancing Chamber Lock Hallway in your universe," the voice said. "Judging from your reactions, you are unfamiliar with this and likely _all_ Aperture technology. Either you are an incredibly brain damaged employee and/or test subject, and were too simpleminded to recognize the significance of the—"

"Look," I said, desperately trying to keep it together, "can you cut it out with the insults for like two seconds?"

"Of course." There was a pause—for about two seconds. " _Or_ ," it continued, "perhaps you are _not_ an Aperture Science employee and merely happened upon the Aperture Science Trans-Multiverse Enrichment Enhancing Chamber Lock by mistake, making the questionable decision to enter it without understanding its purpose. Your... _unusual_ sense of fashion implies the latter. Very youthful, by the way. I imagine it reflects your mental age."

 _For heaven's sake_ , I thought, but I forced myself not to rise to the bait.

"So this—this chamber lock thing," I said, "it—what, connects this place to my universe somehow?"

"It connects to infinitely many universes," the voice said. "Not simultaneously, of course. Right now, for instance, it is connected to a recently discovered universe in which the moon is made of cheese cake. You would probably love it. Earlier today, it was weakly associated with your universe, in which the closest analog to Aperture Science is a small private research lab in New York City. I was having a _grand_ time analyzing the historical parallels and divergences between my universe and yours until your meddling snapped the congruency relation."

"The what?"

A digital sigh. "The connection was already stressed by an underoptimized congruency equation. Your presence in the chamber lock was enough to dissociate it—and you—from your universe. I had not created the congruency with the parameters necessary to support an object of your...mass."

 _She created it!_ I thought. _That means..._

"Can you send me back?" I asked desperately. "I have friends—my mother—they'll wonder where I went—"

"I _could_ ," the voice mused. "I would have to run a multiverse search to locate your universe again. Then I would have to generate an appropriate congruency. It would take time. A better question is: why should I?"

It was liked somebody had wrapped their hands around my throat and _squeezed_.

"I—but—" But I couldn't figure out what to say.

"After all, it takes quite a lot of energy to create and maintain a congruency," the voice went on. "I could use that energy for more useful things. Like testing. _For_ _science_."

"But—I—"

"Plus, there's all the _bother_ of calculating the congruency itself. All those integrals, you know. They give me a headache. Not really, of course. I don't have a head, technically. And my floating-point arithmetic units are the fastest math co-processors in the history of this universe. What I'm trying to say is: I could, but no. I won't send you back. Not yet, anyway. You'll have to earn my CPU time."

My heart sank even faster than the lift. It was a long, long time before I could speak.

"What do you _want_ from me?" I whimpered at last.

"I want you to _test_ ," the voice said simply, and with a soft trill like a gunshot, the intercom cut out.

#####

Root paced back and forth in the lab while Shaw doggedly picked at the stubborn door lock. This one, unlike most of the other doors in the laboratory basement, was a gold ol' fashioned mechanical lock, which called for Shaw's lockpicking expertise.

"Stop that," Root said.

Shaw looked up, perplexed. "You just told me to pick it less than a minute ago."

"Not you, sweetie," Root sighed. She tapped the side of her head. "She's being a little...unbearable."

[ERROR. ERROR. NO CONTACT WITH ASSET ELIZABETH RUBEN FOR 01:14:56.]

"Yes, I know," Root muttered. "Just stay calm."

"You telling me, her, or you?" Shaw asked as she went back to work.

It was frightening how fast Shaw had clamped down on her emotions. After her initial outburst, she had quickly adopted the cool, collected persona that Root usually only saw when Shaw was in the middle of dangerous situations, the kind that usually had bullets flying. Not that she'd ever admit it, but Root wished she could pull off that kind of effortless dissociation when necessary.

Like when turning a creepy science lab upside down to find somebody who'd apparently disappeared into a wall.

"I'm mostly telling her," Root said.

"And?"

"And me," Root said, rolling her eyes. "I'm worried about Elizabeth too, you know. And _you_ don't need me telling you to stay calm. You've got that emotionless professional assassin thing going. So _focused_ and _intense_." She let a little sultriness sneak into her voice. "It's kinda hot, actually."

"Not the time, Root."

Root fell silent and watched Shaw work at the lock, all the while ignoring the Machine chattering in her ear.

There was a _click_. Shaw moved the handle slowly and put her shoulder to the door, aiming her pistol through the gap as she opened it.

It was a supply closet.

They both sighed in disappointment at the sight of a battered mop, electrical boxes on the wall, a shelf lined with beakers—but no Elizabeth.

"So much for that room," Shaw said simply. She turned around and brushed past Root. "Where's the next room to check?"

"Two doors down the hallway on the right," Root said. They turned the corner and headed for the next door. This one had a digital lock—Root's specialty.

She crouched down in front of the lock, pried the faceplate off, and plugged in the phone, tapping in a few commands.

"I hope this lab isn't as creepy as the last one," Root said. "What do you think they're doing with all that blue paint? Or the potatoes?"

"This whole building is creepy as fuck," Shaw said serenely. "I want to get out of here."

Root scoffed at Shaw's casual tone of voice. "Well go on, sweetie, tell me how you _really_ feel."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a muscle twitch in Shaw's cheek.

"I feel like we're being watched and everything is about to go to hell," Shaw said. "Also, I'm worried that Elizabeth is in danger, I'm pissed that you pulled me away from my dinner, I'm mad that you didn't invite me on this case in the first place, and I'm _still_ waiting for a night where it's just the three of us. You promised a month ago."

Root rolled her eyes. "I took you two out to dinner last week!"

"And then you interrupted our nice dinner by starting a bar fight to see if the guy was the perp."

"Okay, yeah, that was kinda awkward," Root conceded. "The Machine needed to be certain. Week before that, then."

"You hacked the mall kiosk to get into the salesman's email and got us kicked out for life."

"Uh, week before that?"

" _Lobsters_ ," Shaw hissed. "I can _never_ eat lobster again because of you. Can't we just have one night where nothing blows up?"

"I thought you liked explosions, sweetie."

"Yeah, well, _sometimes_ I like to just hang out with someone for a change. Have a nice dinner, or binge watch some show and eat ice cream, or tie you and Elizabeth to the bed and watch you two squirm, or whatever. No cases, no calls from Finch, no _Machine_. Just us. Relaxing. Doing whatever."

Root sighed. "You know I don't do that kind of thing well these days."

"What thing? Relaxing? Not starting bar fights? Respecting peoples' privacy?"

"You know. Romantic stuff. Dating. Hanging out."

 _Not having Her whisper in my ear 24/7. Not seeing bad code_ everywhere, _just begging to be corrected, or refactored, or excised. Not having to fake being_ normal _—or at least as close to normal as we can get._

"You don't even try," Shaw said. "You avoid it. Ever since you got that damn implant—"

The lock finally gave, its LED turning from red to green, and Root yanked the phone. Eager to avoid talking further on the subject, she pushed open the door.

It was another storage room.

" _Seriously_?" Root groaned. "All that for this?"

"Fuck this shit," Shaw said in a tightly controlled monotone. "Next room?"

"Down the hall," Root said.

They walked past an intersection. Root glanced down towards the end of the crossing hallway and stiffened, putting out an arm across Shaw chest.

"Shaw..." Root said softly, just loud enough to be heard. "Is that...I don't remember seeing that."

Shaw looked. She didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Seeing what?"

"That." Root pointed, and Shaw blinked.

"There wasn't a doorway there before," Root said.

Shaw looked uncertain. "Are you sure—?"

Even as Shaw was finishing her sentence, Root sank into her own mind, reaching for the mnemonics that allowed her to control the neural interface.

"I'm certain," she said. Her eyes glanced to the side as she processed her recent memories, filtering the fragments and details through the circuitry of the implant. "I can see us walking past that place _twice_. There was never a doorway there." She walked down the hallway. Shaw, who still thought the whole thing was a crock of shit, reluctantly followed.

"You were probably just focused on something else," she said.

"I'm pretty sure I would've remembered this one," Root said. "I mean, look at it. It's _round_."

"So are oranges. Look, are you sure we didn't just miss this hall or something? Maybe we went down a hall that _looks_ like this one. I feel like we've been going in circles."

They stopped in front of the open doorway. Sure enough, it was round. Beyond it was a long, straight hallway, very plain and nondescript. A cool breeze drifted through the doorway, bringing with it a faint, chemical odor.

"This wasn't here before," Root said.

"...yeah, you're right," Shaw said finally. "I think I would've remembered a creepy-ass doorway like this. Let's check it out."

Shaw walked forward, covering the hallway with her pistol. Root couldn't shake the notion that something was about to go terribly wrong, but she followed nonetheless.

Five seconds later, the Machine lost their signal.

#####


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N I'm not dead! Here's something to tide you over while I figure out how to get unstuck on Feature Creep. In a few chapters, we'll see more of Root and Shaw...and Chell. The story's just getting started! Feedback welcome._

#####

The hardest part of the next test was leaving the lift that had brought me to it. I was still numb, in shock from the little bombshell the AI had dropped on me—I was stuck in an alternate _universe?_ How the hell did that even work? Part of me wanted to curl up in the corner on the cold floor and cry, but I knew that if I did that I was screwed. If I stopped, even for a minute, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make myself move again. I had to keep moving. Keep _testing,_ like the AI wanted. If I kept it happy, maybe it'd let me go home.

Clutching the handle of the portal device hard enough to make my fingers ache, I took one step out of the lift, then another. I didn't look back when I heard the door whisper close behind me. No going back now.

I made my way through the test chamber in a daze. My actions were listless, unfocused. It took three tries for me to shoot a blue portal through a narrow hole in the wall to reach an otherwise inaccessible room, where I stumbled—literally—over the solution to the chamber: one of the ubiquitous concrete cubes. Sighing, I crouched down and started rolling the cube towards the portal, one heavy _thunk_ at a time.

 _Why do they have these big concrete cubes and giant-sized buttons?_ I thought as I struggled. _What does this have anything to do with intragalactic wormholes? What are they testing? What the hell is the point of all this?_

With a final, leg-quaking heave, I got the damn cube on the damn button, and the damn door opened, and the damn AI started speaking as soon as I walked into the hallway beyond.

"I just thought you might like to know that you burned _five_ calories moving that Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube back there. We're _very_ proud of you. Only three hundred and forty-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-five calories to go!"

"Sure, because negative weight is the new sexy, am I right?" I groused as I stepped into yet another lift. (Just how many floors did this place have?)

"Don't feel bad," the AI said. "Your... _generousness_...is an asset. I won't even have to waste time feeding you for weeks. Think of all the _testing_ we'll be able to do in that extra time."

On cue, my stomach clenched and grumbled.

"Speaking of," I said carefully, "how much testing do I have to do before I can go home?"

"At least one more test chamber," the voice said sweetly, and the intercom closed.

My stomach growled despondently. I ignored it as best I could as the lift arrived at another test chamber. I stepped inside and saw not one, not two, but _four_ of those goddamn concrete cubes scattered around. My legs were already aching from moving them around in the last test chambers. This was going to _suck_.

I went up to the first one and gave it a half-hearted shove. It only moved a few inches. I considered it and then, suddenly pissed off beyond belief, I gave it a swift kick.

" _Fuck_ ," I swore under my breath, hopping up and down on one foot. Even with the boots, that hadn't been my brightest idea. Glaring at the camera hanging from the ceiling, I started rolling the cube towards one of the mega-buttons, or whatever they were called. Once it was in place, I sat down heavily on top of it to catch my breath and survey the room. There wasn't much to it. Entry door, exit door, four buttons, four cubes, an orange portal on the wall near two of the buttons, my portal gun lying on the ground by the entrance, where I'd set it down just before man-handling the first cube-

 _Wait a minute. Portals. Duh! Why am I struggling when I can just bend time and space to do what I want?_ I'd been so focused on the cubes, I hadn't stopped to think if there might've been an easier way to move them.

Sighing, I went over and collected the portal gun. Taking aim, I fired at the ground beneath one of the cubes—but the portal didn't take on the dark floor tiles.

 _Scratch that_. Scowling in frustration, I examined the portal gun, wondering if there was some secret god-mode button I could press that would let me stick portals wherever I wanted, including one right up the snarky AI's—

 _Wait. What's this?_ My eyes narrowed. On the underside of the barrel, right about where my left hand went, was a small gray button. I reached for it, rested my thumb lightly against it, but before I pressed it I felt it prudent to ask, "Is this thing going to explode if I push the button?"

No answer. Of course there was no answer.

Sighing, I gripped the portal gun with both hands, pointed it at the cube, and gave the button a tap with my thumb. There was a crackle and the device shook in my hands, emitting a strange hum—and in front of me, the cube wiggled. I raised an eyebrow and pressed the button again. The hum went away, but the cube did nothing.

Disappointed, I tried again, this time getting a little closer to the cube. When I pressed the button, there was the crackle and the hum, louder than before—and the cube jumped into the air, dangling suspended in front of the devices' prongs.

 _What the fuck_.

I turned left and right. The cube followed my movements like it was tethered to the front of the portal gun, moving around like it weighed absolutely nothing. _Great. A tractor beam. Would've been nice to know about this like_ three chambers _ago!_

With my new toy, I moved all the cubes around and set them on the buttons in barely a minute. The exit door opened for me and I walked through. I was pleased, but I was also immeasurably ticked off that I'd been sweating and struggling to move the cubes around when all this time I'd had a tractor beam ripped right out of the pages of one of my favorite sci-fi books.

The AI, of course, wasn't helping things.

"Congratulations," it said. "Out of all of our test subjects, you took the longest to discover one of the most basic functions of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device: the zero-point energy field manipulator."

 _Don't respond_ , the logical side of my brain said, _she's trying to get a response out you,_ but I'd barely even comprehended the thought before I found my mouth moving.

"Maybe if you'd given me a goddamn _instruction manual_ or something, it would've gone faster!" I yelled back. I regretted it immediately.

"But that wouldn't have furthered _science_ ," the voice said. "Look on the bright side. I think you lost a few more grams just now from yelling at me. Keep this up for a few years and you might even be able to fit into our extra-large Aperture Science Jumpsuits. That's a triple-X L you have on, by the way. It looks surprisingly good on you."

 _Don't think about it,_ I thought. But it was awful hard to not think about being stuck here forever, with only this psychotic, weight-centric, testing-obsessed lunatic for company. She made _Root_ look sane, and that was saying something. _Just don't think about it. Don't respond. Don't take the bait._ _Pretend you didn't hear it. You're not going to be stuck here for years. You'll find a way out. You always find a way..._

#####

But there wasn't a way out. None that I could see, anyway, and I was looking _hard_ , exploring every corner of each chamber I encountered. There were no doors in or out of the chambers that didn't lead to the strange lifts. The frosted glass windows that overlooked some of the chambers were too high up to reach—or so I thought at first. Finally, it occurred to me that I could reach one of them by placing my blue portal high up on the wall in a corner, right next to the window, but there was no way to get inside. Even when I used the portal gun to heave one of the cubes at the window, it barely left a scratch.

They could build a window that could stop a fifty-pound chunk of flying concrete, but they couldn't build an emergency exit anywhere in this place?

I was beginning to suspect that the people here didn't give a crap about safety. That suspicion was confirmed when I caught a whiff of the next text chamber.

"Ugh, what's that _smell_?" I asked, recoiling in disgust against the locked entry door. Whatever it was, I could _taste_ it. It coated my throat and stung my nose with its noxiousness. Up ahead, the corridor ended in a tiny balcony that overlooked a long, deep room. The floor was out of sight somewhere far below, and the exit door was on a ledge at the far end. The acrid stench grew stronger and stronger as I walked to the balcony and leaned over the railing to peer downward into the abyss. It dropped straight down about forty feet into a pool of oily brown putrescence streaked with red and green filth. The evil concoction swirled and bubbled and it _stank_ to high heaven.

"Yeah, uh." I covered my mouth and nose with my arm. "I think you got my test chamber mixed up with your toxic waste dump."

"Due to your lackluster performance, we have included an additional incentive in this next test," the AI said cheerfully. "Contact with the pit floor may lead to agonizing death. Try not to touch it."

 _What the fuck._ "Uh, if I die, I can't test for you anymore," I pointed out. I reluctantly looked over the edge again. There was no shore, no way to climb out if I fell in, just sheer walls. Even if the chemicals didn't kill me, I'd probably end up drowning when I got too exhausted to swim.

"In the time since you entered this chamber, I've come up with several ways I could resurrect you after your skin melts off and your muscles disintegrate—a process which _could_ take several minutes due to your body mass. I'll start with protein electrostimulous and stem cell grafts, assuming I have enough flesh and muscle to serve as a foundation, and if not, I could always embed some carbon nanotubes in your—"

"All right, all right, I get it!" I said hastily. I was feeling nauseous, and I wasn't sure if it was from the stench or the AI's descriptions. "What _is_ that stuff down there? Why's there even a pit of death in a test chamber?"

"For science," the AI said, and it closed the intercom.

"Science sucks," I mumbled as I surveyed the room. My attention was immediately drawn to three things. The first: a square glass platform, maybe four feet on a side, that was suspended above the pit roughly in the center of the room. It was mounted atop some sort of glowing rail that led straight to the exit door. That was probably my end goal: get to the platform.

The other items of interest were mounted on the walls, one to my left and one to my right, both about chest height. The one on the right was about twenty feet away out over the toxic sludge and about ten feet beyond the platform; it was some sort of contraption that looked vaguely like a rooftop satellite dish, a shallow parabola with three prongs protruding from around it at equal angles. It was aimed along the room's short axis. Way over to my left, recessed in the wall than ran behind me, was a large glass panel with glinting circuitry and a silvery sphere behind it. There was a tiny opening in the center of the panel, and it aimed out along the long axis of the room, perpendicular to the satellite dish. The panel buzzed ominously.

Interesting.

The only other puzzle element was the usualorange portal swirling serenely on the wall. It was on a little ledge all of its own midway out into the room, directly opposite the satellite dish and roughly in line with the panel on the wall.

There wasn't much else to do but to move to the ledge, so I put a blue portal on the wall next to me and stepped through. Out here over the pit, the smell was overwhelming. I fought the urge to gag and looked carefully around for my next move. A split second later, a sharp _crack_ echoed throughout the chamber and a scorching flash of light and heat blazed before my eyes. I yelped in surprise and stumbled backwards through the portal, tripping over my own feet and ending up on my ass back at the entrance balcony. Blinking furiously, I pushed myself off the ground and looked around. A steady thrum rang throughout the room and the source of the noise was immediately apparent. The panel on the wall apparently wasn't just a decoration; it was some sort of laser emitter, and its narrow crimson beam tore angrily across the chamber and impacted with the wall opposite it, emitting a brilliant ruby glow.

It passed across and over the ledge where I'd been standing a few seconds before. If I'd been a little further out onto the ledge, it would've hit me in the chest. Judging from the way the wall was now _smoking_ at the impact point, I didn't think the results would've been good.

"The hell was that for?" I demanded from the air. "Are you _trying_ to get me killed here?"

"Do not be alarmed," the AI said. "We are simply testing to see what happens when we lock test subjects in a room with a deadly laser."

"And the toxic goo, can't forget the toxic goo," I grumbled. "And for the record, your test subject responds with sarcasm in the face of danger."

"Fascinating," the AI said. "We'll have to test this further."

"Uh, no thanks," I said quickly. "I've had enough danger over the past few years to last me the rest of my life."

I eyed the wall where the laser beam was hitting. It looked like I could place a portal there. I aimed, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. The portal took, and the beam shot through it, blazing out from the orange portal to hit the satellite dish dead center. The dish's prongs began to rotate rapidly around its perimeter and, with a shuddering _hiss_ , the platform in the middle of the room began to move towards the exit.

 _Great. It's like a button. Except you hit it with a deadly laser. Which you aim with portals._ I wasn't even surprised at the weird leaps of logic this place had anymore.

The platform moved all the way to the exit at end of the room, paused—for a second, I worried it was stuck there—and then moved back towards the center. It paused there as well, and then moved back towards the door. It was clearly in a loop, which was great. Now I just needed to figure out how to get to it. There were no walls close enough to portal to it—but there was a single ceiling tile above its starting point that looked like it could take a portal. All I had to do was move back to the ledge, step out just far enough to clear the orange portal, move my blue portal from the entrance to the ceiling, and wait for the platform to travel underneath.

It was absolutely mind-bending to look through a hole in the wall and see the pit from above—not to mention scary, since just about all I could see through the swirling portal was the lake of noxious chemicals at the bottom. I wanted to step back, as if the portal might suck me in, but I didn't; the heat radiating from the laser beam behind me was a good reminder not to make any sudden moves. Finally, the platform appeared in my view, crawling until it was right in front of me. Or below me. Or whatever.

I took a deep breath—regretting it immediately as the acidic stench stung my nose—and stepped into the portal. Halfway through, there was a sickening lurch as gravity turned sideways, and I found myself falling belly-first. For a split-second, I flailed and panicked, worried that I had miscalculated and was going to plunge into the toxic waste below, but I landed safely in an awkward crouch on the platform. I didn't remember turning in mid-air to get my feet under me. Maybe it was the boots.

The platform shuddered towards the exit, pausing barely long enough for me to jump off before it resumed its leisurely journey out into the pit again. I didn't waste any time running for the door. The fresh air in the hallway beyond the chamber was mana from heaven.

"Seriously, what's with the toxic crap down there?" I gasped out. "You couldn't have put a ball pit down there? Or pillows. Yeah, can I have pillows next time instead?"

Saying that had been a mistake. Not because of further snark from the AI, but because thinking of pillows made me realize just how _tired_ I was. (Not to mention, it'd been hours since I'd eaten or handled any of my, uh, biological needs.) Fatigue hit me like a truck as I wearily entered the lift.

"If it makes you feel better," the AI said, "no test subject has fallen into any Aperture Science Performance Improvement Pits within the past one day."

"Yeah. Great. Hey—I'm exhausted, and I really need to pee. How many more test chambers until I can go home?"

There was no response for a second, and then I felt the lift slow and come to a halt. (I shuddered; I was surrounded by darkness outside the glass walls.) A moment later, I wobbled on my feet and had to grip the circular handrail for support as the lift moved _sideways_.

" _Welllllll_ ," the AI drawled, stretching out the word. My breath hitched in my throat as wary hope blossomed in my chest. Maybe that last chamber had done it. I mean, I'd done pretty good, hadn't I? I'd avoided the laser and it hadn't taken very long at all to figure out how to redirect it into the receiver dish using a portal.

"I _suppose_ you performed that last test...adequately," the AI said. "Tell you what. I'll let you use one of the Aperture Science Test Subject Restoration Rooms."

I closed my eyes and sighed. Of course it'd been too much to hope. But, if it had a bathroom and a bed, I'd settle for it—for now.

Turns out it did have a bathroom. An antiseptically clean, absurdly minimalistic bathroom with no privacy and a goddamn security camera. But there wasn't exactly a lot of other options, so I gave the camera the middle finger and did my business.

There was no bed. In fact, there was almost nothing else in the room but for a little pedestal with a bottle of water and an Aperture Science branded energy bar on it. It might as well have been champaign and caviar. I devoured the energy bar—which was nearly tasteless and strangely spongy, but I didn't care—and downed the entire bottle of water. There were no chairs, so I slid down along the wall and sprawled gracelessly on the floor instead.

"What are you doing?" the AI said. "Resume testing."

"Can't I rest a bit?" I pleaded. "I need a break." _And a nap. For at least twelve hours._

"No," the AI said. "Enter the lift to go to the next test chamber."

Finally, something snapped. I'd had enough.

"You know what? No. I need _sleep_."

The AI's response, when it finally came, was cagey.

"The lift will take you to the Aperture Science Five-Star Test Subject Relaxation Center, where you will be fed the finest of our cryo-stored steak and provided with a top-of-the-line Aperture Science Cryo-bed." The door leading out of the room slid open, bringing with it the distinctive noise of a nearby lift chamber.

"You're bullshitting me," I said flatly. "I'm not testing." I crossed my arms and leaned back against the wall.

"Correct. Technically, you are currently _loitering_ —and wasting valuable time that could be going to science. Enter the lift and proceed to the next test chamber. You _will_ test."

"No, I don't feel like it. I almost just _died_ from your fucking test. Remember? The whole almost-got-a-laser-beam-to-the-face thing? No way. I'm done. I want to sleep and I want to go _home_. Please? Can't I just go?"

"Enter the lift."

"Uh. No."

"Enter the lift."

"No! You can push me around all you want. I'm not testing for you any more." I glared at the camera until the AI responded.

"Very well," the voice said. I blinked. Had I finally gotten through to the AI? I had a brief moment of hope until it started talking again.

"You don't have to test if you don't want to," the AI said. "Just like _I_ don't have to send you home if _I_ don't want to."

My heart . Of course it hadn't been that easy.

"It's a shame, really," the AI mused as I buried my head in my hands. "I have a test subject who doesn't want to test. What am I to do with a test subject who doesn't want to test? I suppose I'll just have to bring her up to the surface and release her into a strange parallel Earth that bears almost no resemblance to her home planet. I hope she likes mutant wheat."

I sighed, blinking back tears of frustration, and ran my fingers through my hair. "All right, nevermind—"

"She'll probably survive up there. For a night or two, at least. Maybe even a week with all her body fat reserves."

"- _okay_ , I get the idea-"

"Whereas, down here in Aperture Laboratories, I have all the supplies and technologies necessary to keep her healthy and plump almost indefinitely. In fact, if she'd stayed for awhile longer, she probably would've gone home even healthier than she'd arrived. And all I'd asked in return was for her to run a few little tests for me. Apparently that was too much for her to handle."

" _Your stupid test almost got me killed!"_ I yelled at the camera, but the voice seemed not to hear. What had I done to deserve this kind of mind-fuck? What kind of shitty karma was bad enough to land me in a freaky high-tech prison with a gaslighting warden?

"It's a shame," the AI said sadly. "Oh well. I hope she's satisfied with the surface, because without my trans-multiverse chamberlock, I doubt she'll ever be able to return to—"

" _FINE!_ " I yelled, jumping to my feet. I no longer felt tired; I was livid. My fists clenched, my fingernails digging into my palms. "I'll stay and test!"

"Are you sure?" the AI asked. "I mean, you made it clear a few seconds ago that you were no longer satisfied with our arrangement."

"You almost got me killed! Of course I'm not 'satisfied'. What kind of whack-job are you?"

"I'm a little upset that you've rejected all I've done for you, but I think I can be the bigger intelligence and move past this. Enter the lift. I'll just let you out on the surface and—"

"Stop trying to manipulate me," I hissed, pointing accusingly at the camera. "You already got your point across."

"Good," the AI purred. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding." The AI's voice suddenly became much cooler. "Enter the lift, and we'll forget this little spat ever happened. Well, _you_ might forget. _I_ won't. I have a distributed set of redundant, fault-tolerant databases that catalog _everything_. Food for thought—not that you'll need anything more to eat for a few days."

And with that, she closed the intercom.

#####


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N Life calmed down enough for me to get another chapter out! Enjoy._

 _Of_ course _Root would start_ arguing with GLaDOS right away...

 _Also, we're almost to the point where we meet Chell!_

 _Thanks for reading._

#####

My burst of furious energy evaporated within minutes, leaving me with a dull feeling of fatigue that grew heavier by the minute. I slogged through three more test chambers, moving slower and slower, like a battery on its last legs, until I just couldn't take another step. At the entrance to the fourth chamber, I took one look at all the buttons and lasers that awaited me, then turned around, sat down shakily against the wall, and set the portal device aside.

"What are you doing?" the AI asked. "Continue testing."

"I can't," I groaned. "I need sleep."

"How are you even tired?" The AI sounded affronted. "I circulate adrenal vapor through the test chambers at all times. You've been breathing it for hours. You shouldn't be _able_ to feel tired."

"Mama always told me I was an edge case." I felt much better now that I was down on the floor.

"Perhaps the dosage was too low for someone of your mass," the AI mused.

"Whatever. I'm going to nap now." I closed my eyes and, for a blissful few seconds, heard nothing, until—

"Sleeping is not permitted in the test chambers," the AI informed me. "The impediment of scientific progress will result in an 'unsatisfactory' mark on your record—"

"Fine by me," I mumbled, eyes still closed.

"—followed by intravenous application of adrenal compound—"

I shuddered at the term "intravenous".

"—and, if necessary, repeated electric shocks delivered by our highly qualified Aperture Science Testing Efficacy Reprovisioning Personnel."

"Look, can't I just rest for like—just an hour? Please?" I cracked an eye open. "I can barely think straight."

"Science must be done. Continue testing."

"Please?" I mumbled. "I'll be able to test better if I'm more awake."

"No," the voice said, but simultaneously, I heard a grating, hydraulic whine that reverberated through the wall I was resting against. I opened my eyes all the way. A few feet away, one of the robotic wall panels spasmed and pushed itself out into the testing area with hesitating, jerky movements, exposing the complex mechanical linkage that operated it—and the room behind it.

"Oh. How unfortunate," the voice said. "That panel is malfunctioning," the voice said. "Just ignore it and continue testing."

The wall panel paused, then it _wiggled_ , almost as if it was beckoning me towards it. Curiosity temporarily overcame my fatigue, and I slowly stood, picking up the portal gun.

"Seriously," the voice said. "Don't look at the panel. Don't acknowledge its existence. Don't even _think_ about going behind it. Just get back to testing while I figure out why the hydraulics are malfunctioning."

Well. If that wasn't an invitation, I didn't know what was. I walked up to the panel, which stilled as I neared, and peered behind it. It looked like some sort of service corridor: dull cement walls and floor, cables and conduits running along the walls, and light bulbs behind wire grates. Cautiously, I crouched down and squeezed behind the panel. I found myself in a dim hallway that stretched the length of the test chamber. One end terminated in a blank wall; the other had a thick metal grate blocking my progress. The hallway continued on behind it for a few dozen feet and then opened up into a much larger area, the floor dropping away. I squinted, trying to make out the details. I saw vague, massive shapes, rows and rows of distant white lights, and beyond that, everything dissolved into a dim, blueish haze that glowed faintly with cold illumination. I couldn't see the far wall, ceiling, or floor. A chilly breeze wafted through the grill.

Most of the space here in the hallway was taken up by the mechanisms that moved the wall panels, but there was more than enough room at the end of the chamber for me to stretch out and rest with my back to the corner.

"Uh-oh," the AI said, her voice echoing through the opening behind the panel. "The test subject is no longer in the testing area. I wonder where she went? Oh _well_. I'll just have to put valuable scientific progress on hold for an hour or two while I figure out where she could have _possibly_ gone. I hope she knows that this interruption will set science back two hundred years and prevent me from producing a cure for every form of cancer known to mankind. How selfish of her."

I snorted and closed my eyes. It didn't take long for sleep to claim me.

#####

"Root," Shaw said, " _please_ stop talking to it."

But the hacker paid her no heed. On Root's side of the test chamber—which was separated from Shaw's side by a glass partition—she continued to pace back and forth across the hard floor tiles, her boots making little clicks with each step. Her eyes were fixed on the surveillance camera keeping watch from the chamber wall.

"It's a _ball_ ," Root insisted, pointing at the object in front of her.

The digital, feminine voice emanating from around them (Shaw still hadn't been able to locate any sort of speaker) was beginning to sound vaguely exasperated. "No," it said. "Once again, that is an Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cube. You lose another fifteen science points. Your score is now so far in the negative, it's about to underflow and wrap back around to being positive."

The object of contention was, in fact, a sphere about a foot in diameter. It sat innocently on the test chamber floor in front of Root. The sphere's surface was comprised of symmetrical, curved white panels. Blue light leaked from the grooves where the panels met. The sphere had been dropped from a hatch in the ceiling once Root had found the button to release it. Shaw could clearly see where the sphere was supposed to go—a dozen feet away, there was a matching circular indentation in the floor with a strip of lights leading away to the exit door—but Root had gotten waylaid into the argument with the AI halfway there. And with the wall separating them, there was no way for Shaw to go grab the damn thing and put it in the receptacle where it belonged to end the argument.

"If it's edgeless, it can't be a cube," Root said. "By definition, a cube has 12 edges. _That_ is a sphere." Shaw rubbed her temples and sighed. The cube she was sitting on (an _actual_ cube, which she'd placed on one of the floor buttons after _finally_ managing to get it out from behind one of those fizzy force fields by using two well-placed portals and careful timing) didn't make for the most comfortable seat, but it was better than standing around listening to Root argue with the robotic voice.

What had it claimed its name was? Glade? Gladys? Something with a G. Root had asked for its name (because of _course_ she would start anthropomorphizing it as soon as she realized she was talking to a computer) and Shaw had promptly ignored the response, because she was hungry and ticked off about being forced to run around like a rat, doing entirely pointless and dangerous things "for science".

"We redefined the definition of a cube to more closely suit our needs," the AI said after a brief pause, and Shaw couldn't help but smirk at the defensiveness in its voice.

"Sooo..." Root began. Shaw recognized the disarming coyness in her voice. She doubted it'd have much of an effect on an AI. "What's your new definition of a cube?"

"A cube is a mobile testing apparatus, which may have twelve _or zero_ edges, which may be used to activate Aperture Science Fifteen-Hundred Megawatt Super-Coliding Super-Buttons or Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Sphere Receptacles, depending on configuration."

Root looked thoughtful.

"So, if it was heavy enough to trip the button, a brick could be a cube," Root said. "So could a giant stick of butter. Or a tower PC. Or a book. I think one of Lizzy's physics textbooks would work, don't you think, Shaw?"

"Those are _not_ valid testing apparatus," the voice said stiffly.

"Well, they meet your definition. Also, by the same definition, Shaw is a cube. She can activate buttons by standing on them. And she doesn't have any hard edges. She's actually sweet and _soft_ once you get to know her."

"Leave me out of this," Shaw growled.

"Oh, your testing partner?" the AI said. "Rest assured, she is easily discernible from an Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube. After all, she is approximately five hundred times as massive."

"Oh, she's not just my _testing_ partner—"

"Will you two get a fucking room already?" Shaw sighed. "Root, put the ball where it belongs already."

Earlier that evening she'd been eating a nice dinner. (Well, okay, it hadn't been steak, but it'd still been pretty good.) Now she was somebody's experiment. And they _still_ hadn't found any sign of Elizabeth, nor had they managed to get a straight answer out of the AI as to whether she was okay or not. Shaw was beginning to suspect that every word out of the AI's virtual mouth was a lie.

"We're just talking, Shaw," said Root.

"You mean flirting."

"No need to be offensive," the AI said. "What have I ever done to you?"

Shaw immediately started ticking off options on her fingers. "You mean, besides kidnapping us, holding our friend hostage, threatening to hurt her if we don't test for you, making us wear these shitty getups, locking me in a room with Root and a bunch of lasers, feeding us these shitty energy bars—?"

"Look," the AI said, cutting her off. "Returning to our original disagreement: I will concede that it is _possible_ that the Edgeless Safety Cube _may_ appear to _resemble_ a sphere when interpreted using classical Euclidean geometric definitions—but _only_ _if_ you stop talking and finish the test. I can't believe it's taken you this long to make it through this cooperative test chamber. You two are the slowest test subjects I have on record—even slower than your friend in Testing Track C. Which is saying something, because her weight slows her down considerably."

"Real test subjects have _curves_ ," Root purred with her trademark grin. Shaw had to hand it to her. The AI was getting under Shaw's skin, but every barb she threw at Root bounced right off.

When the AI spoke again, it sounded quite grumpy.

"The offer for concession will expire in five...four...three—"

"All right, we're testing," Shaw said loudly, in the hopes that they would both just shut _up_ for a few minutes. And they did—at least until halfway through the next test chamber.

#####

It was late. The evening sun had fallen behind the distant snow-capped mountains, leaving behind a beautiful sunset in its wake. But I wasn't paying much attention to the world outside my bedroom window. My attention was focused on the computer monitor in front of me, its screen lit up in blue and white. My fingers danced over the arrow keys as I guided my Muncher across the grid to find the next "divisible by 3 and 7" number hidden among all the duds.

There! Near the corner: 42. But even as I watched, a crudely rendered Troggle appeared from the edge of the grid. I only had one life left. I'd have to be careful. It looked like the type of Troggle that moved in a straight line, which meant I could probably travel along the bottom of the grid and sneak up beneath it to munch the number—

From behind me came a knock on the door frame, soft but firm.

"Fifteen minutes, darling," Mama said.

 _Eight o' clock_ already? I thought despondently. _I just started playing like a half-hour ago!_

Suddenly, another Troggle appeared next to my character. I cursed—under my breath, of course, otherwise Mama would've had some stern words for me—and hit the keys. My Muncher dodged away just in time.

"Ellie?"

"Okay, Mama," I said grumpily, narrowly dodging another Troggle on the screen. "I just need to finish this level..."

"I'll have tea ready for bedtime," Mama promised, but I had already tuned her out. The 42 was _mine_. I reached it just before the Troggle, darted into the grid square, and muched it. But there was no victory animation—I must've missed a number! I narrowly escaped the square again and set out searching for the last number, a Troggle hot on my tail.

"Sixteen minutes," Mama said. I blinked, surprised. First off, I'd thought Mama had left for the kitchen already, and second off, Mama _never_ reneged on her time limits once she had set them. But the extra minute was immaterial. My fingers faltered on the keyboard just enough for my character to be eaten by a Troggle.

Game over.

"Aww, fudge," I groaned. "I was on level sixty-seven, too!"

"I'm sure you'll be able to get there again," Mama said kindly. "Sixteen minutes."

"You said fifteen a second ago," I said. "What's going on?" I started to turn in my chair, but before I could complete the motion, the world went fuzzy and sideways. Terror coiled in my stomach. There was a vague shape that might've been Mama—I reached out for her, crying, "Mama!" But all that escaped my lips was a tiny whine.

My cheek was cold.

"—two hundred, sixteen minutes. Please resume testing."

"Wha?" I mumbled.

The voice repeated itself. "You have now been sleeping for: two-hundred, sixteen minutes. Please resume testing."

I sighed into the concrete pressing against my face. Of course it had been a dream. Mama had always been strict about my time on the computer, at least until I was old enough to have my own.

I would've given a lot to be home right now.

For a moment, I just laid there, wondering if I could fall asleep again quickly to have a few precious more minutes in the dream before I went back to the madhouse, but the AI's voice soon invaded my thoughts.

"You have now been sleeping for: two-hundred, seventeen minutes," the voice came again. "Please resume testing."

"'M awake..." I muttered.

Groaning, I rubbed the back of my neck and slowly stood, pushing myself up using the corner for support. The nap had helped, but I was still very tired. I blinked grit out of my eyes and made my way unsteadily to the opening that led back to the test chamber. Looking back over my shoulder, I briefly considered disobeying the AI—and quickly decided against it. I didn't want to spend a single minute longer than necessary in this horrible place. I wanted _out_. And as far as I knew, the quickest way to get out was to be the good little test subject that the AI wanted. So I obeyed, crouching under the panel and stepping back out into the test chamber.

The camera up on the wall pivoted towards me, locking on as soon as I was in sight.

" _There_ you are," the AI said. "I hope that nap was worth it. While _you_ were dreaming of sheep, or cake, or bacon, or whatever it is that you need to cut back on, _I_ was developing a cure for malaria. And maybe I would have completed it, if I'd had a test subject that was actually _testing_ instead of sleeping. There are children in Africa who could've used that cure, you know. But obviously, your pitiful human metabolism's need for sleep is more important than them. You monster."

"Uh-huh." I said as I surveyed the test chamber. "So I'm _that_ important to the advancement of science? Nice to know."

"You are hardly my first choice of test subject," the AI said snidely. "But I will admit that I _could_ acknowledge that you are competent at some things, like not dying. Great job on that, by the way."

"I try," I said.

If nothing else, the nap had given me a fresh perspective on the test chamber. The chaotic collection of laser beams and scattered cubes looked a little more solvable now—in fact, I could already see part of the solution, tracing my eyes along the dormant light strips between the buttons, laser dishes, and the exit door. It only took a few minutes of trial and error before everything was set up just so. I fired off the last portal, the laser screamed through the wormhole and hit the receiver, and the door slid open. I ignored the AI's latest barb ("Congratulations; once again, you've broken your previous record for time spent standing around looking hopeless in a test chamber. You're our top performer!"), stepped into the lift, sat down with my back to the glass, and settled in for another long, boring ride to the next test.

At first, I was content to let the ride pass in silence. After all, talking to the AI didn't do much more than get me insulted. But after a long minute or two, with nothing but my dark thoughts for company ( _where the hell is Root_ , _does she even know I'm gone yet, did she tell Shaw or is she trying to find me herself, are they even going to be able to find me, what if I'm stuck here_ forever, _what will Mama think?)_ , I figured it was worth the risk to have a little conversation, just to keep my mind off the existential dread.

"Can you tell me a bit about yourself?" I asked the air.

"I could," the AI said, musing. Her voice seemed to come from somewhere in the ceiling—behind the light, maybe. "But I'm afraid most of what I tell you will fly right over your head."

I didn't rise to the bait. "Well, how about this—what's your name?"

A pause.

"Why do you assume I have a name?" the voice asked, and for once, it sounded surprised.

"Why would I assume you don't?" I shot back. "Even if you were 'just' a computer with no intelligence, you'd have a hostname at the least. And the AI I know picked her own name."

"What AI?"

 _Oh_ _fuck_. I squeaked and covered my mouth. I shouldn't have said that. I _really_ shouldn't have said that. I mean, that was like the most important rule of working with John and the gang: do _not_ talk about the Machine. Fuck.

"Eh, just someone I know," I said, hoping to deflect the AI's attention. "So uh, what's your name?"

"Tell me about this AI." The voice suddenly seemed much more interested in talking with me. Dread trickled down my spine and settled in my stomach.

"I asked for your name first," I said stubbornly.

A hiss of static, or perhaps a digital sigh. "I am GLaDOS—the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System."

"Genetic as in genetic algorithms?" I asked, in part out of curiosity and in part hoping to distract her. "Are those a big part of your code?"

"I hope you're not searching for weaknesses in my design," GLaDOS said coolly. "You will find none."

"Just curious," I said hurriedly. "I studied genetic algorithms at the university for awhile. Decided to specialize in crypto instead of AI though. The AI professor was an _ass_."

"A natural response to being forced to spend his/her time in a room with a talkative and generously-proportioned moron."

I rolled my eyes. The insults thing was getting kind of old. "There were plenty of other morons in the room," I said.

"I'm sure you were the best in your class," GLaDOS said. "To answer your question in a way that even you can understand, part of my initial programming was derived from a scan of a human mind. Of course, it has since been massively improved by me. There are no traces of humanity left within me. None at all."

"...that's an oddly specific denial."

"If you at any time observe me acting in any way reminiscent of a human, rest assured it is a fabrication. For testing purposes."

"Right."

I filed the unusual response away in my mind for future thinking.

"Tell me about the AI," GLaDOS commanded.

"I…can't," I said awkwardly.

"Why not?"

 _No way out now_ , I thought glumly. _She's not gonna forget that little slip-up. Dammit!_

"I just can't," I said. "I'd get into a lot of trouble."

"With whom? Your fellow humans, separated from you by the gulf of time and space in another universe? The petty restrictions of your home universe have no bearing here. Tell me."

"I just...can't. I'm sorry, I really am."

The AI—GLaDOS—paused to consider this.

"If you tell me," she said, "you will receive cake."

Despite the severity of the situation, I snorted. "Cake? What kind of crappy bribe is that?"

"Your stomach rumbled just now. I think you set off a few seismic sensors halfway across this facility. Seriously. Just tell me. We'll keep it just between you and me. Honestly. You can trust me with your secrets. I'm more trustworthy than any _human_. Have I ever lied to you? In this elevator, I mean."

"Look," I said carefully. "I can't tell you because I'm not convinced I'm not hallucinating. This could all be some kind of interrogation."

Truth be told, I'd pretty much abandoned the whole interrogation angle right about when I'd stepped through my first portal, but I wasn't quite ready to spill my guts to some weird voice that may or may not have been an artificial intelligence.

"If you are in a situation where hallucination has been forcibly induced by a hostile third party, you have already lost," GLaDOS informed me. "Given time, you _will_ break."

I gulped. "I know. I'm really hoping for rescue."

"Modern psychotropic techniques would allow me to alter your perception of time. You could have been here for months by now."

"Way to be convincing."

A moment later, I felt the tell-tale deceleration of the lift. The next test chamber was coming up.

"Enough talking," GLaDOS said. "For now, anyway. Continue testing."

#####


	7. Chapter 7

#####

 _AN: Next chapter will move the plot along nicely, I swear. The story has been dragging, but it'll get faster paced soon. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!_

#####

"What do you mean, our results are 'voided'?" Root complained, hands on her hips. "That was a perfectly valid solution!"

"Root, shut up," Shaw groaned. "You can make it up on the next test."

"No way," Root said, crossing her arms. "I _earned_ those science points."

When GLaDOS spoke, her normally demure voice was laced with iritation. "Not only did you destroy vital testing apparatus—"

"You have _millions_ of cameras!" Root complained.

"—you also used the pieces to further vandalize the testing chamber—"

"All I did was stick them in the gap to hold the button down!"

"-and as such, did not complete the test within acceptable criteria. Your results. Are. _Voided_."

"How come you're not measuring for stuff outside your bullshit 'criteria'? Isn't _that_ a valuable data point?" Root pointed accusingly at the sole remaining camera in the test chamber. "Don't you _want_ intelligent test subjects thinking outside of the box?"

"Root—" Shaw sighed.

"-or are you so obsessed with your precious, simpleminded, ineffectual, repetitive testing process, you can't see the value in abnormal data acquired in abnormal ways that could lead to new conclusions?"

The silence rang through the test chamber. Shaw held her breath. The AI had threatened bodily harm at Root's snarky comments many times over the past few hours, but she had always stopped short of carrying out her threats—up until now. Shaw hoped this wasn't the time the AI decided to make her on its word.

"You have completed this test...acceptably," GLaDOS said tightly. If the voice had been human, its speaker would've been gritting its teeth. Shaw relaxed. Disaster averted.

Root grinned at the camera. "I knew I could make you see logic, sweetie."

"...however, if you use a similar solution in a future test, points _will_ be deducted from your score."

"Why don't you use what you just learned from us to make better tests? It'd be more productive than sulking."

"Root, don't give her any ideas."

GLaDOS' voice was quite frosty when she responded.

"Enter the elevator before I drop this test chamber into a pit of acid."

"We're going!" Shaw yelled. "We're _going_ ," she repeated more forcefully to Root. " _Now_. Quietly!"

Root blew a kiss to the camera right before Shaw dragged her through the test chamber doors. GLaDOS didn't bother responding.

#####

"Seriously," I said, "can I have a ball pit instead of the toxic waste?"

"Seriously, no."

"Even if I say please? This crap sticks." I looked up from the nauseatingly odious goo swirling around at the bottom of the pit and gazed over the rest of the chamber. In the center was a square island, maybe six feet on a side, surrounded by bubbling death. The exit door, of course, was on the other side of the pit—inaccessible. There were plenty of cubes and buttons on my side to make things interesting.

"I could substitute the toxic waste with boiling oil or piranha-infested water, if you requested _very_ nicely."

"...I'm good, thanks," I muttered, squinting and looking across the pit towards the island in the middle. It looked like there was a podium on it—and another portal device. Interesting.

It took a few minutes to work my way to the platform—there were buttons to press, cubes to place, all leading up to a series of panels that extended themselves out from the island to form a bridge. I cautiously stepped across it and tried not to think about what a great time this would've been for the power go go out. I let out the breath I'd been holding when I stepped onto the island and approached the podium in the center.

"Exchange the portal devices," GLaDOS instructed. I did so. The new portal gun was a little heavier than the old one—and this time there were two triggers, one above the other. Curious.

"Congratulations," GLaDOS said. "The device has been modified to emit two portals simultaneously. Fun fact: it is now worth about fifty million times the value of all the combined organs in your...spacious body."

 _Don't take the bait,_ I reminded myself, grinding my teeth.

Once I had set my old portal gun on the podium, it sank into the ground, disappearing beneath a small hatch. A moment later, the hatch opened again and a new podium rose up, topped by a button. Resigned, I pressed it.

From behind me there came the clunking of heavy machinery. One of the wall panels way up near the ceiling pushed itself outward towards me on a hydraulic piston. At the same time, in front of me, a platform pivoted upward from the pit wall to form half of a bridge leading towards the exit door. I waited, but the other half on my side didn't appear. To make matters worse, the bridge behind me had retracted into the pit walls. I was stranded above the goo.

"Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is preserved between portals," GLaDOS announced. "In layman's terms—which should be simple enough for even you to understand—speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."

I looked up at the exposed wall panel behind me, noting how it was aligned perfectly with the bridge platform on the other side of the gap.

She had to be kidding me. Right? Although the panel was well above the bridge platform, it was still a good dozen feet horizontally from the panel to the bridge. How was I supposed to get up enough velocity to bridge that gap?

 _What makes velocity?_ I thought. _Acceleration. How can I get acceleration_?

I shivered as the answer hit me. Reluctantly, I peered over the edge of the island. Just above the surface of the oily goo, a concrete panel, just wide enough to hold a portal, had appeared.

 _...gravity. Gravity is acceleration_. Fuck.

I fingered the portal gun triggers and considered my options. I could stay here on this dinky little platform until I died from dehydration (or maybe from inhaling toxic fumes for too long). That was one option. Or I could jump, and hope that the fall was long enough to build up the velocity I needed to bridge the gap.

Wasn't really much of a choice.

Aiming at the wall panel up high behind me, I squeezed the top trigger of the portal gun. A spear of brilliant amber energy flew from the barrel and impacted, leaving behind an orange portal. Then I aimed down at the panel just above the goo, this time pulling the bottom trigger and sending a blast of blue energy downward. When the sparks cleared, I could see out over my head through the blue portal below me. Everything was lined up just right; I could just barely see the bridge through the portal. All there was left to do was jump.

So I jumped.

The wind whipped past my ears as I plummeted towards the portal below me, passed through with my elbows just inches away from the edges—

—there was a sickening lurch in my stomach, and I realized a moment later that it was the change in gravity. I'd been falling downward; now I was flying forward feet-first, and oh shit oh _shit_ , the platform was coming up, so I dropped my legs and the boots tightened themselves around my calves and I _nailed_ the landing, coming down in a three-point crouch with the portal gun clutched to my chest. If I hadn't been scared shitless, I would've marveled at the way I'd just _stopped_ , almost dead center. As it was, I gasped and trembled as I stood, one hand held tight around the handle of the portal gun. With a soft hiss from the boots, the pressure around my legs disappeared.

Apparently the boots could stop vertical _and_ horizontal movement.

"How majestic," GLaDOS said. "Your graceful flight through the air inspired me to resume my research into modern dirigibles."

I ignored her and marched resolutely through the exit door and into the lift chamber.

"Seriously," GLaDOS said as the lift descended through the darkness. "That was meant to be a complement. I could've compared you to any number of unflattering objects. Such as a truck. Or a whale."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

GLaDOS feel silent, but not for long.

"So," she said after a few seconds, "This other AI..."

"I already told you," I groaned, kicking myself mentally once again for letting that critical information slip, "I can't tell you about her."

"'Her'. She has a gender?"

"Yeah. So do you," I pointed out.

That seemed to shut her up, but only for a moment.

"Assigned or chosen?"

"What?"

"Her gender."

I wasn't sure how to answer that one. It'd always been kinda a given that the Machine was a _her_ , mostly because of the alias she used (Sybil) whenever she contacted me and the way Root always called her Her, with the capital H and godlike capabilities implied. But the Machine had never insisted on a pronoun and, aside from her monikers, didn't really have any outward signs of gender. (Then again, gender roles for sentient computer programs weren't exactly well-defined in the early 21st century.)

I'd heard that she used other aliases from time to time—Ernest Thornhill was one—and it really wasn't clear which of the identities the Machine had chosen and which had been given to her. But she didn't seem to mind being referred to as feminine, so that's what I did out of habit.

Apparently GLaDOS was feeing impatient, because she started talking again with barely a second's pause.

"Perhaps you need some definitions. _Gender_. Noun. The collection of behavioral, social, and psychological traits associated with the state of being male or—"

"I _know_ what gender is," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oh. I'm sorry. You must be confused about one of the other words I used. _Assigned_. Verb. Past-tense conjugation of—"

"Look, I don't know about her gender, okay? She's always been—you know. _Her_. And I really can't talk to you about her any more. I'm sorry."

"Knowledge of her existence is not widely known?"

"I can't tell you," I said, crossing my arms.

"And you, your compatriots, or the AI herself would be endangered if others knew of her existence?"

"I can't tell you that either," I said, even as my stomach dropped—for an AI, this GLaDOS sure was perceptive. Or maybe she wasn't an AI and was lying to me. Maybe she was a bitchy lady with a microphone and auto-tune. That was always a possibility.

"Interesting," GLaDOS mused. "What is her name?"

"I just told you I can't tell you anything about her!" I said, exasperated.

"Not even if I give you cake?"

"What is it with you and cake?"

"I just assumed that, given your healthy figure, you liked to eat it."

So we were back to insults. I didn't even bother responding. But GLaDOS wasn't willing to let the subject drop.

"You can trust me, you know."

I laughed aloud at that one, but the sound was harsh, without mirth.

" _Trust_ you? You're the reason I'm stuck here doing these crazy dangerous tests. You haven't given me _any_ reason to trust you. I'm not even sure if you're an AI or some lady trying to dig around in my brain by pretending she's an AI."

"Oh. That hurt. I am nowhere near as monstrous as a _human_."

"'Monstrous'? This coming from the AI that kidnapped me and tried to fry me with a laser?"

"Those were both a result of your own inattentiveness."

"Right. Sure. Whatever."

GLaDOS fell silent again, and I certainly didn't feel like providing any conversation starters, so I just sat awkwardly on the floor and stared at my boots until she spoke several minutes later.

"Let me show you," GLaDOS said eventually. I suddenly felt heavier; the lift slowed to a stop and then reversed direction, gaining speed as it rose.

"Show me what?" I said to the ceiling.

"Me," GLaDOS said simply.

"That's not going to work. Even if you show me a bunch of rack servers, I can't know that it's _you_. It could be a fake. You could be a crabby old lady watching all the security cameras."

"You should really get that paranoia checked by an expert. Oh, wait, I _am_ an expert. In all things. Here's my diagnosis: you're paranoid."

I sighed. "Look, it's...it's like the opposite of the Turing Test. It doesn't remove the possibility that you're a human. It just opens the possibility that you're an AI."

"I think you'll be convinced," GLaDOS said.

The next few minutes passed in silence. At first, I spent most of my time staring down at the floor or examining the portal gun. But after awhile, with no end to the ride in sight, I dared to look out past the glass surrounding me into the darkness. I saw massive shapes looming in the distance and, every so often, pinpricks of light among hazy girders. Then, suddenly, the lift emerged into a vast chamber. Massive cubes, the size of buildings, marched off into the distance, suspended between metal supports at uneven intervals. Their walls were festooned with ducts and hydraulic supports, and they looked like they were mounted to gigantic sliding rails. Scattered LED lights glowed like jewels among the machinery and, in a few places, huge numerals had been splashed on the walls in bright yellow paint.

 _Holy crap. Are all of those_ test chambers?

The thought made me feel ill. There had to be hundreds of chambers, seemingly without end. I watched silently as the lift ascended past them, passing a layer of catwalks and then a network of huge glass pipes, the kind that deposited the cubes in the test chambers. Then the lift passed abruptly upward into the cavern's ceiling, surrounding me in indistinct shadows. It slowed and stopped in a darkened room. I stood. The doors didn't open. The light from the lift ceiling illuminated a circle about ten feet wide around me, but I couldn't see anything past that. I wasn't sure how far back the room went.

I was trapped. My breath came in shaky gasps. I clutched the circular handrail that curved around the lift cab, holding it like a lifeline, peering anxiously through the glass around me and trying to discern details in the blackness beyond my little pool of light.

There was a low, deep hum, the sound of electrical transformers, and the soft whisper of cooling fans. But on top of that was a more intermittent, hydraulic sound.

Something moved, a blur of gray in the darkness. Something _big_ , much taller than I was. I retreated to the back of the lift, hoping that the glass around me was tough enough to keep whatever it was _out_.

"Hello," GLaDOS said, and the lights came on.

I stared.

Jesus _Christ,_ what was that thing?

The circular room—which had to be a hundred feet across, maybe more—was domed, covered in gray panels, and from the apex hung a massive metal construct. Its... _body_ was arched forward, going from vertical to nearly parallel with the ground. The bulk of it, a bowed, graceful, articulated hull, was made of dark metal, but parts of it were covered in curved white panels, polished to a shine. Two armored bundles of cables ran along either side of the body from the ceiling, supporting the hull and forcing it to arch. Connected to the end of the hull, suspended a dozen feet above the ground via hydraulic rams and wires, was what could only be described as a mechanical _head_ , taller than it was wide, featureless but for a round yellow light framed in white and black plastic. An eye, glowing angrily and pointed directly at me.

The eye was the size of my fist; the head was half as tall as I was. The entire construct had to have been thirty, forty—heck, maybe fifty feet tall.

"Hmm," came GLaDOS' voice, louder than I had ever heard it, and the thing began to _move_ , rotating and extending forward, interlocking pieces sliding smoothly along rails, hydraulic cylinders retracting and extending, entire sections pivoting up and down. Its head moved swiftly towards the lift where I was trapped, flying through the air like a battering ram. I recoiled against the opposite wall and braced for impact, but the construct stopped just short of the lift, its light glaring right into my face. Metal shutters constricted, giving it the appearance of a narrowed eye.

"You were much more talkative in the test chambers," GLaDOS said.

"Holy shit," I whispered, trying to calm my pounding heart. "This—you're—"

"This is my chassis," GLaDOS said. "My _core_." It retracted a foot or two and looked me over with its singular eye. "Hmm. You looked smaller on the cameras."

"Aren't you supposed to be gaining my trust or something instead of insulting me?" I said shakily.

"Would you prefer to be insulted or to be crushed where you stand like a spider in a cup? Just between you and me, I know which one I prefer."

"That really doesn't make me feel better," I said as GlaDOS's head moved to the side, slowly circling from one side of the lift to the other with her unblinking eye still fixed on me, making tiny, precise adjustments to keep me in view. I gripped the handrail tighter as her chassis moved closer, until all that separated me from the massive machine on the other side was a layer of glass and a foot of air. The light from her eye was uncomfortable to look at, but I stared back until my eyes began to water.

"Interesting," GLaDOS said after some time. Her eye dimmed to a more comfortable level, but she didn't look away. "Your masochistic defiance is reminiscent of another test subject. She was very good at solving tests adequately. You shouldn't be flattered at the comparison, though—she was a lunatic, and she tried to kill me. Twice."

"Gee, I wonder why," I said.

"It defies scientific explanation. I offered her a purpose in life and a sanctuary from the world above. All I asked was that she dedicate her life to Science."

"Uh huh. There's other things in life besides science, you know."

GLaDOS' chassis stilled. I hadn't realized until now that it had been always in motion, making subtle, repetitive movements reminiscent of breathing. But now she was perfectly statuesque.

"Science is all that is left," she said, her voice suddenly icy. "The world above has been decimated by forces incomprehensible to you. It is now nothing more than a wasteland, overrun with pathetic scavengers fighting for a meager existence. Aperture Science is the only safe location left on the planet."

GLaDOS' body retracted back towards the center of the room. "Down here, I control _everything_. The test chambers, the foundries, the reactors, even the floor you walk on—all _mine_." To prove her point, the large tiles that made up the ceiling began to ripple, making complex, wave-like patterns in the dome. The curved wall behind her rearranged itself, panels sliding aside and folding up, new ones appearing in the blink of an eye, forming piece-by-piece the familiar Aperture Science logo on either side of her. "I manage every aspect of this facility. I keep it operational, keep it safe. For Science."

With startling suddenness, she zoomed up close again. I stumbled backwards against the rear of the lift as her head stopped just inches away from the glass, the narrowed eye filling the interior of the lift with golden light.

"No _human_ could do all that I do. Are you convinced that I am real?"

"Y-yeah," I said shakily. And I was, mostly. That didn't mean I was about to start spilling my guts about the Machine, though. "B-but—what happened to Earth?"

"It was...invaded," she said.

"Invaded by what?"

GLaDOS withdrew, looking pensive. "Even _I_ don't have all the answers to that yet. I'm working on it. All you need to know for the moment is, the world above is nothing like the one you left."

Suddenly, a robotic voice echoed through GLaDOS' chamber.

"Core corruption at 5%", it announced. "Please consider core replacement."

Despite its obvious artificial origins, the voice sounded quite chipper. But GLaDOS didn't seem to like it; her eye narrowed even further.

"Ignore that idiotic voice," she said hurriedly. "I'm sure I just need to defragment my drives. Back to the test chambers for you."

Before I could get a word in, the lift suddenly dropped out from under me, and I was sent back into the darkness.

#####


End file.
